


East of All Stars and West of All Moons

by personalphilosophie



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Giant Space Roadtrip of pain and longing, Keeping the Stars Apart, M/M, Minor Character Death, Reylo - Freeform, Reylo Baby, Shameless Smut, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, very very mildly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 23:28:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 34,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8077492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/personalphilosophie/pseuds/personalphilosophie
Summary: "Little one, youngest of this group, I tell you not when to flee, or from whom, or to where. Little one, bride of the monster born on no planet, from the stars of the North. You have far to run yet still. So does your beast. Run fast as you can little one, it will be here soon."Rey ran.Based on the tale 'Porcul Cel Fermecat" or "The Enchanted Pig".





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my submission for the Reylo Fairytale anthology! Much love and thanks to my mods, and my beta Romelette who doesn't even ship reylo. Please leave comments, I worked so so hard on this.

“ _ KRIFF! _ ” Poe swore as he dropped the whirring metal contraption. It clattered to the floor.

 

“Careful,” Luke cautioned quietly. In the whisper-empty hush of seamless stone, their voices seemed as loud as the curling roars of the ocean.

 

The thing continued to click and rattle its way across the floor towards Finn, who jumped back and ducked his right leg behind the left. 

 

“That thing’s trying to to drill into me! What  _ is _ it?”

 

Rey bent down and plucked the feverishly whirling part off of the ground. Squinting, she held it up in the thin beams of sunlight dripping through the pin-holes that puckered and dappled the ceiling tiles.

 

“I think it’s some sort of a motor piece.” She raised her voice. “You must have reconnected the wires, jostled them together somehow, when you rattled it.”

 

Poe loped over, grinning sheepishly. It was kind of odd for Rey to see him out of the fluorescent orange X-Wing suit. Luke insisted on the change, despite the fact that he had worn the uniform once.

 

“It’s too flashy,” Luke had complained. “The only way you’d stand out more on this planet is if you were a stormtrooper,”

 

“I’ll just share the jacket with Finn, then,” Poe laughed. Finn hid his face and walked around with a small, sweet little grin for the rest of the trip. Rey would’ve teased him, but she thought they’d be lovely together.

 

It turned out that the sacred jacket was completely unnecessary. The rotting, musky air was warm and clung to their skin like a sobbing, fever-drenched child. Time and weather had worked hand in hand to nurse a thriving forest of greens, purples, yellows in shades and hues and patterns that Rey had never* seen. Yet for all its life, it still seemed dead. There was no wind, no uptake of breath to spare them from moisture soaked heat.

 

Luke gave another soft, reproachful glare. Rey immediately dropped her tone down into a whisper and continued murmuring to Poe.

 

“Think that it powers something? It still works, so maybe...” Her eyes darted about the large chamber. There were stone walls, another wall of plants and mosses, but no machines or panels to pry open and reveal a missing engine part. She turned it over in her hand and it shut off. Bringing it up to her eye, Rey rotated it slowly. A quick examination with two fingers revealed that one of the sides was actually a switch. When it powered down, the clicking and clacking metal contraptions spindled rapidly back down into the handle.

 

“It looks like a stunner.” Finn appeared over her left shoulder. “Maybe the prongs generate electricity and you can use it to zap someone.”

 

“I think Jedi can do that with their  _ minds _ , buddy. So why would they have shocking devices when they  _ are _ the shocking devices?”

 

“That’s a power of the Dark Side,” Luke clarified. “The Emperor was the only one I ever saw use it.”

 

“What about Kylo Ren?” Finn asked.

 

Luke dropped the pair of wires he’d been twisting together in a small alcove and walked across the large chamber to examine the piece.

 

“It’s possible.” He took it from Rey’s hand. “I haven’t seen Ben for almost seven years now, and who knows what Snoke has taught him?”

 

They stood in silence around him, and watched as he poked and prodded, flipped and turned.

 

“You’re all wrong,” he announced. “It’s not an engine piece, or a battery, or a weapon. It’s a key.”

 

Luke pointed to the small nook in the corner of the temple where he had been hunched over for several minutes. Where once there had only been silence, she could now detect a faint energetic hum. It was slow at first, but rapidly increased in speed, and its cycles bled into each other, like the flapping of a bird’s wings.

 

“I want you three to stay here while I open it up.” He pointed a silencing finger at Rey, who had already opened her mouth to argue that she belonged by his side, no matter the danger. “And don’t move until I say everything is case green. The Jedi guard their knowledge well.”

 

Luke set off. Rey huffed, crossed her arms, and watched. Who knew what could be in there? Wouldn’t it have been better if she had been there to help him? She growled under her breath. That was her  _ job _ , wasn’t it? To a certain degree she was supposed to protect him, and he was supposed to protect her. Duty came first, however. She had been commanded by her master to stay put, and stay put she would.

 

She felt a repeated, insistent prodding at her shoulder. Rey looked over and saw Poe and Finn with those Force-forsaken smiles on their faces. Normally Rey loved to see them smile and loved nothing more than to smile with them. But these particular smiles usually only came about after a few rounds of drinks (from which she had been barred, at Leia’s command) and a lot of stupid ideas.

 

“No. Don’t even think about it,” she said bluntly. “We have our orders.”

 

“You know, Rey, neither the fine fellow next to me nor myself got where we are in life by listening to what people told us to do.”

 

“Hey, speak for yourself. I was a decent soldier before this whole Resistance thing,” Poe grumbled.

 

“No you weren’t, you took off as soon as you could.”

 

“Well, before that I was.”

 

“Liar, Shmitt up on 401 got us your file from the FO’s archives. Infraction after infractio-”

 

“Wait, shut up the both of you, here he comes!” she cried eagerly. Her face fell as he approached. The way his brows knit with worry was like the air before a storm. “Master Luke? Is everything alright?”

 

He waved her off. “Go get the gear and meet me at the entranceway. What I found was troubling and I... I need to think on it. Alone, Rey.” Even when he wasn’t reading her mind, he was. Luke stopped, not bothering to turn around. “Don’t go in that room. It’s dangerous.” Then he was gone again around the corner.

 

“Let’s go and get the gear,” she said and turned around to where they’d put the packs and scanners.

 

“Nah, wait a minute and  _ think _ , Rey,” Poe said. “Whatever’s in there can’t be dangerous. You would have felt it, right?” 

 

Finn shook his head. “I don’t think he’s telling us the truth. Or at least the whole truth.”

 

“He doesn’t have any reason to lie to us. We should just do as we’re told and stay out.”

 

“Finn? I’m gonna go in with or without her.” Poe crossed his arms and smiled that stupid, cocky, consequences-be-damned, adrenaline junkie smirk of his. 

 

Finn nodded back, and Rey knew that it didn’t matter if the Maker himself appeared to tell them not to, they were going in. It gave her second thoughts as to whether or not they should be left alone together in the future. Still... it was just a room, wasn’t it?

 

The seed of doubt grew into a vine, flowered, and bore fruit by the time she crossed the threshold with them. Every hair on her body stood rapt at attention, and every moving shadow seemed to be Luke’s, disapproving and ready to bear down upon them. 

 

In this forbidden room, it was dark. Not the hot, wet, dark of the other chamber, but a different kind. This was the darkness in the middle of the night, in that brief second where the moons hid their faces, and all that could be seen or felt was the cool hand of solitude. The odd, turquoise lighting of the hologram in the middle of the room did nothing to alleviate this. All it seemed to do was cast flickering shadows up against the back of her eyes.

 

The hologram showed a face, a face that was a face only in form. Cleft into halves by two bony ridges, it sloped gently from the slightly conical forehead down to the point of the chin. A star-shaped mass stretched from the center to each of the four corners: left eye-space, right eye-space, left cheek, right cheek. Darting about the X was a cluster resembling an eye, that split into parts equal in size to the original in order to better lock gazes with each of them. At the base of its throat was a glossy gem, which it touched with a writhing finger.

 

_ Hello Rey. You’ve spent a long time running, haven’t you, little one? _

 

The voice was un-male, un-female, to a degree that it was not-humanoid. It was the voice that floods the holes in bones, the unspoken duty of cells.She trusted it completely, without knowing why. 

 

_ You have come here to know where you will go. I think you knew all along that you would come through this door. _

 

The urge to look away traipsed across her mind. She ignored it.

 

_ Little one, youngest of this group, I tell you not when to flee, or from whom, or to where. Little one, bride of the monster born on no planet, from the stars of the North. You have far to run yet still. So does your beast. Run fast as you can little one, it will be here soon. _

 

The connection fled, ripped from her mind. Rey stood, shaking in a cold sweat while vomit fizzed up and down her throat. The soothing coolness of the air became foreboding, frigid. All traces of welcome swept away to reveal sharp truth.

 

_ ‘Master Luke was right,’ _ she thought numbly.  _ ‘This room is the most dangerous place I’ve ever been.’ _

 

She cast a sickly glance over at Poe and Finn. They shook too, but with a different strain. The heat on their faces and the look in their eyes was that of a podracer who narrowly missed a head-on collision. They were excited, thrilled, the sort of sick that people spent their whole lives pursuing faint imitations of.

 

“Rey! Wasn’t it amazing?” Finn laughed, putting his hands on her arms. “Rey? Hey, you okay?”

 

“I--I don’t feel well.” His hands felt cold. The words of the holo burned in her mind, a flare in an arctic wasteland.

 

“What did you hear? What did it tell you, Rey?” His pinprick of a voice was lost amongst all the other buzzing. 

 

“Something she shouldn’t have. None of you should have heard anything.”  Luke’s solid-stone voice rang out. Judgement as surely as the other voice had been knowledge.

 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, not entirely sure if it was to herself or to Luke. “I’m sorry for coming in.”

 

“I’m disappointed in you, Rey.” Anger held no place on his face like she feared it would. The sadness she found instead twisted in her heart like a knife, and she folded up into herself. “Poe, Finn. I expected better of you. Now do as you were told and go get the gear.” He walked off, his shoulders hunched and his head downcast.

 

“How the brix did he know we were in there? It was... like, a minute at most!” Poe complained, fishing his chrono out of his left-breast pocket. He frowned.

 

“What is it?” Finn asked.

 

“It was a lot longer than just a minute or two. Try twenty.”

 

“That’s impossible, Luke was only in there for a few seconds. Wait...Rey, could that be part of what he was talking about? Rey?”

 

She gave a slow half-nod, gathering the pack into her arms. “Mmmm.”

 

Finn clapped her on the shoulder. “You look like the holo told you you’re going to die tomorrow. Or that the sun explodes in fifteen minutes.”

 

“Kriff, Finn, I hope she’d be a bit more emotional when faced with our deaths.” Poe squished her into his side and scruffed up her hair. Rey cast him a reproachful glance and nudged an elbow into his ribs, then walked away. 

 

Poe stopped. “Was it really that bad?”

 

She nodded, tight lipped and hard eyed.

 

“It said I needed to run, and run fast. That there was a monster after me. And that someday I’d marry it.”


	2. Chapter 2

Rey sat alone in the Falcon’s booth, absentmindedly staring at the staticky dejarik figures. Monsters. She couldn’t stop the thoughts running through her head. All her life, she planned, prepared, and survived, never picking apart meaning. There wasn’t fine literature on Jakku, and all of Finn’s reassurances that the future wasn’t set in stone did nothing to soothe her worries.

 

“Bwee-ooo-bwa-oop-boob,” BB8 bumped into her foot. “Per-booooooooooop?”

 

“Hm?” She looked down. “No, I’m sorry, not right now. I need to think.”

 

“Bwaop-bop?”

 

“I _know_ they were just trying to cheer me up, but I can only stand being called a ‘Rey-ncor’ so many times. Stop that, it isn’t funny!”

 

BB8 chortled and whizzed away around the corner, no doubt to tell Poe how clever he was for such wordplay. The droid was a perpetually-motivated positive affirmation machine.

 

A hand fell on her shoulder. “Finn told me what you heard. I’m sorry.” Luke lowered himself into the seat in the booth across from her. Her ears perked up a bit. “But Rey... It’s very dangerous to dwell on the future. You can try to prevent it, to change it... but very often your efforts do nothing but bring it about.”

 

“You’ve tried?”

 

Luke closed his eyes and released a sigh. “No. My father Anakin Skywalker did. It led to his fall into the Dark and becoming the Sith Lord Darth Vader. It was my mistake to bring you there. In my arrogance, I thought that the news would all be good.” He chuckled. “But the Force is rarely so careless.”

 

Rey shook her head and reached across the table to sooth his year-scarred hands. They sat in silence until she had gathered her thoughts with a long, deep, slow breath.

 

“I should have listened to you. My weakness _is not_ your fault.”

 

Luke opened his eyes. “As I said, the Force is unpredictable. Maybe you were meant to see the forbidden. But...”

 

“It is best not to dwell on these things?” She gave him a small smile, which he returned.

 

“Have I mentioned that you’re my favorite padawan?”

 

Rey’s smile broadened, and she looked away. No matter how she tried to smother it, strangle it, drown it in some semblance of a normal expression, she just couldn’t do it.

 

“Sadly, that won’t keep me from beating you at Dejarik,” he remarked casually, moving his deathstrider six spaces.

 

She scanned the board a moment before shaking her head. “You can’t use the Kintan deathstrider gambit on me. That move only truly works once. After someone’s seen it, they recognize it instantly.”

 

Luke nodded thoughtfully. “I never should have let Beebee-Ate teach you.”

 

“It was rather pleased with itself afterwards. Wasn’t it?” Rey maneuvered Grimtaash the Molator two spaces and pushed Luke’s Houjix. “And I think that ruins your chances at the gambit, doesn’t it, Master?”

 

“That one.”

 

Rey watched in horror as her Molator was ripped in half.

 

“Sometimes, we become so blinded by what we know what will happen if we take a certain path, that we don’t check for the dangers that the others might hold.” Luke winked at her and stood up. “I take it Beebee-Ate never used the Painted Banners gambit?”

 

She sighed. Luke waved slightly and began the walk back to the small meditation area he’d set up in a storeroom.

 

In the instant before it happened, Rey felt a wave of foreboding crash over her. No. Not a wave. The entire ocean had come to suck her down into the depths of precognition. She drowned in the certainness of it and couldn’t even open her mouth. The First Order had come.

 

Overhead she could hear the rumble and crash of a thousand planets, a sound like the mechanic mandibles of insects opening and snapping. In that muddy pause of dreams, she swung her head around to the spot where her satchel lay. Her lightsaber. Rey stretched out a hand. She would fight them, they’d escape...

 

All around her, she could feel the Force swirling. It splashed and mixed, each person with their own signature. Above her she felt the stormtroopers, a lukewarm estuary that hummed beneath the surface. Pure instinct. One stood out with a sharp coldness to it that almost burned her consciousness. Finn and Poe, hot blooded and playing off of each other. And Luke. He felt like resignation, fatigue seasoned with fear. Not for himself, but for her.

 

“You knew this would happen,” she whispered. “That’s what the Foreseer told you.”

 

His eyes said it all. “They would have found us on the planet if we hadn’t left. It didn’t matter where I took you. They would have come for us.”

 

Shots echoed across the ship. Finn yelled for her. She cast a final look back at Luke and ran off, lightsaber in hand. Her footsteps seemed nothing more than a subdued tattoo, backwash against the ringing blasts that shook the fragile hull. One more turn and she would be by the hatch...

 

The saber ignited ice blue, sending dancing rays of light that bounced off the small strands of mist curling lazily around her feet. She ignored them and dove deeper into the ship. The shots ceased, and in that moment she became aware of a faint hissing noise that made her eyes stream and blink. The fog grew thicker, paring the edges off of her senses.

 

 _“Finn? Poe?”_  Her voice seemed distant. Distant as... The shapes in the hall. Two. Two on the ground and a few...

 

Rey fell over. She could hear a voice. It was like listening to someone shout against the wind.

 

“Go find the old man.” A woman’s voice, clipped Coruscanti syllables. “I’ll personally secure the girl. Remember, keep her away from the others.”

 

A hand pulled the saber from her grasp. She couldn’t move, couldn’t fight it. She couldn’t even do more than watch as a group of Stormtroopers loaded Poe and Finn’s weakly coughing forms onto the ship. Poe, and Finn, and Luke-

 

Beebee-Ate was gone.

 

“No, no. The old man, Luke Skywalker. He goes with the other two. She goes by droid escort to the Command Station.”

  
  


 


	3. Chapter 3

Everything was dark.

 

Her head hurt. Everything hurt, really, but that was what stood out most. It felt like someone had scraped the inside to shreds with sand. Rey blinked her eyes. They felt big and watery, as though they’d expanded to fill half of her head. The blurry world around her was small, made of metal. She stuck one arm underneath her and pushed up.

 

There seemed to be no one else there. She was alone again, in this box. From wall to wall, it was about the size of her main room in the AT-AT. The high ceiling had two light panels. The rigid cot she lay on was metal as well, some hard, grey substance with little sheen and no sharp edges. A toilet and wash basin, both made of the same metal. Hung up between the two was a small meter that read “Allotted water consumption”.

 

Rey’s feet touched the floor and she immediately drew them back. The cold flew through her bones, freezing marrow into bricks. Her shoulders lurched forwards involuntarily. The door whizzed open, and Rey looked up eagerly.

 

Not a human face, but a droid, armed to its metal teeth, and fixed on her intently.

 

“Prisoner 25-13--5010. Common name “Rey”. You will be fed once daily, at Galactic Standard Noon. Beneath your cot is a beverage receptacle. All water will come out of that daily allotment. Any escape attempts will result in immediate termination. Have I communicated this clearly?”

 

“Go kriff yourself, buckethead.”

 

“Message has been understood by prisoner 25-13-5010. Any infractions from this point on will result in termination.”

 

The door opened once more.

 

 _‘What’s to stop me?’_ She licked her lips. ‘ _I could just run out the door, Force-shove the guards into the wall and-”_

 

“Prisoner 25-13-5010 will cease all movements.”

 

A massive laser ray, cruel and gargantuan, leveled itself with her eye. It had spontaneously birthed itself from a hidden panel that was practically invisible for all intents and purposes, which was most likely the point. It hummed and clicked and turned, the point very nearly brushing the fine hairs on her nose.

 

The door whizzed shut.

 

Rey stared past the gun, not daring to move much more than her eyes. Wireless. They really took no chances with her attempting escape.

 

‘ _Or dying by your own hand,’_ the little voice in her head unhelpfully added.

 

The gun slowly withdrew back into the wall, leaving everything as it had been before: still, quiet, and immaculate. The ceiling softly chimed.

 

“Prisoner 25-13-5010 may resume normal motion ranges and activities.”

 

By the time Galactic Standard Noon had come, Rey was already hard at work. It was difficult to tell time in this compact eternity, and for all she knew it wasn’t Galactic Standard Noon at all. It might be two in the morning, or four in the afternoon. But in that uncertain amount of time, she’d managed it.

 

Strands of hair, twisted and stuck with spit around bitten-to-the-quick,-bloodied nails were all she’d had to work with. There was no grit, no dust or sand in this cell of hers. She’d had to make do with her own person to create the strange little pin. They hadn’t even allowed her to keep her hair ties, so she’d continually had to brush them behind her ears. Rey slowly worked the twisted piece next to the bolt on the bottom-right. It was just ever so slightly twisted to the left a bit more than the others, not even three millimeters more. In went the clippings, twist the hairs around her hand and-

 

He was there. She could feel him there in the hallway. His Force presence...it was odd. It wasn’t like the weathered stone of Luke, or the soft, warm heat of Finn, or even the burning oil splashes of Poe. It was the heat of an engine, power that hummed and throbbed of its own accord. Wherever he went, he drowned everything else. She froze.

 

There were no sounds from the hallway. No sounds in the cell except the echo of her own heartbeat. Was he going to come in? Images rotated through her mind of their previous encounters. The seconds dragged on, his presence billowing about the room so thoroughly that it was like sucking his breath in through her nostrils. He was there, the phantom in black.

 

The Force slowly dissolved, bled itself out from inside her. He was leaving. Rey could see it in her mind’s eye: the purposeful, arrogant stride, like a predator circling a forsaken lamb. He was circling her, toying with her. If she could taste his presence, surely he smelled her fear. Yet he had chosen to walk away, his Force presence had faded, taking with it the tension in her body. She redoubled her efforts.

  
  


Rey was half buried under the cot in her cell when she knew that today he was going to come in. She peeked at the long rows of tallies marked there on the wall under her bed.Twenty-four days. That was how long it had taken him to enter her cell. Each one marked by the passing of his feet, his presence, and with the scratchings of the screw she’d pried from her cot. Kylo Ren. Rey sat on the hard bench against the opposite wall and waited. His Force-presence slid under the door like liquid lightning, gliding in a pool across the floor to tingle her nerves. The air was heavy, taut.

 

_Come in. Come in, you spineless coward._

  
The do

or hissed open. There he stood, masked. From behind it she could feel something-a strange emotion that was closest in kin to relief. His head moved slightly, taking in her bedraggled appearance: unwashed, uncombed, and soiled with the filth of twenty-four dark and dirty days. Ren walked in with the hesitance of a predator, halting, but deliberate. Rey glared at him from behind the curtain of hair that covered all but one eye.

 

“Is this the part where you say something that’s supposed to be seductive and then try to kill me?” The soft puff of air waved the curtain in front of her with each syllable.

 

He didn’t respond.

 

“Going to leave the mask on this time? I bet you learned what happens when you try and play games, didn’t you?”

 

It was a game. A very dangerous one. She’d seen the scars that playing with him could leave on Finn, on Poe, and on Leia, though those were so much harder to realize. Yet she could remake the rules in her own image. She would.

 

“Now you’re as ugly on the inside as you are on the outside.”

 

Their tension broke in half. He waded through the empty space between them, charging, pursuing, chasing. She inhaled deeply, pulling away and into the wall. If he tried to touch her she’d kill him, she’d slam him into the-Kylo Ren did not touch her. He slid into a kneeling position, both hands on the floor, prone. A deep, rattling inhale creaked from his lungs.

 

“Forgive me.” It was a plea, cloaked in the false garb of a command.

She sat there, prickling with rage. How dare this man, this monster, come to her for the forgiveness of his sins?

 

“In my cowardice, I have put off the inevitable for far too long. The nature of your imprisonment here must be told.”

 

Her heart flattened against her ribs and stayed there.

 

“I have been ordered by the Supreme Leader to turn you to our side. By _any means possible_. Strip you of who you are and what you were, rebuild you into a machine, a force for the Dark Side.” His breath shook. “I am supposed to torture you. I am supposed to hurt you. These hands....” He looked at them, clenched them tightly. “These hands have killed so many people. I don’t regret most of them. It was what I was told to do.” He looked up, and she felt aggression from the mask, but not towards her. “I remember what it was like, Rey. It had been done to me. It made me stronger, but you...”

 

He reached out a hand, a hand that had killed countless people, tortured countless minds. It never touched her. He was afraid, of something. Of her killing him, maybe, or of her screams. Or of himself.

 

“Yet you can’t make yourself do it to me,” she heard herself saying, words flying from her mouth “Surprising, considering what a monster you were to Poe Dameron.”

 

“The Supreme Leader has ordered torture methods that were not used against the Resistance fighter. He expects constant updates, and I have lied to him to protect you, Rey. I believe he’s waiting for the news that he’ll soon have a third Force-sensitive at his side. At that point, you may be considered obsolete.”

 

Her breath was gone. Rey sat there, shivering. Maker. That was her future if Luke didn’t come soon. Snoke’s dog. No, Snoke’s bitch, with no willpower and no kindness left in her body.  Rey covered her face, sinking it lower and lower into her lap.

 

“No,” she said quietly. “Luke will come... The Resistance...”

 

“The best I can do is to give you the choice I was never offered, and telling you what will happen if you turn is already more than I got. If the thought of this existence as a Knight of Ren, having these... procedures-”

 

“Cruelties, torture,” she interjected.

 

“I can give you a way out. It will be painless, and fast. Snoke won’t give you the same opportunity. You need to decide within twenty-four hours, Rey. The Supreme Leader believes I’ve been torturing you for almost a month already.”

 

“What would you do... if I told you to kill me? He’s hardly going to believe that I died from your lightsaber all on my own. You have nothing to gain from me making that choice. It’s a murder-suicide.”

 

Kylo Ren stood up. The energy coming off of him crackled, restrained to sweeping along his skin. It was as though he was going to shout, like he had something to say or do. He didn’t. Instead, he strode from her tiny cell, whipping the heavy door shut against the metal wall. Rey sat alone with her thoughts and his echoes.

 

Rey picked up the screw she’d been sitting on the whole time and turned back to the space under her bed. Twenty-three and one-half marks, the last interrupted by her rude visitor. She reached and began scratching, the din in her head burying the teeth-on-teeth inducing one around her.

 

‘ _Why? Why would he offer to let me die with dignity when it means ending his own? We’re nothing more than enemies.”_ Her thoughts flickered back to the cliff on Starkiller, where for that infinite moment, they were two mingled souls inhabiting the same bodies.

 

‘ _No! It was the Force!”_ she corrected herself, and carved much more violently into the wall than necessary. _‘We were both trying to use the Force at the same time in very close proximity. We just crossed wires or something. Enough of the why, Rey. You need to figure out what you’re going to do. If you choose the torture option... bide your time until help comes. But...’_

 

“If help comes. And if it doesn’t, I’m not Rey anymore and Snoke has one more pawn.”

 

_(Or two)_

 

“And my crossing over will wind up causing the death of innocents,” she muttered. “If I let him kill me, he’ll be dead too, most likely. Take out one of Snoke’s most important players. But if I die, Luke will most definitely be killed. Poe and Finn, too. The last hopes of the Resistance dead in a second.”

 

Rey scooted backwards along the cold floor. Her hands grappled with the rough corners of the bedsheet, pulling it off in a tangle and heaping the mess about herself. She laid her head back on the hard cot, and she thought. Plans for escape and what-ifs and shoulds and shouldn’ts and loneliness all balled together into a tangle too big and knotted to swallow or pick apart. It was magnetic, pulling her eyelids shut for imaginings and hypotheticals that gradually, slowly, she lost control of until they swirled slowly around in her head. The door...

 

_The door was a deep red-brown wood, notched and scarred.  Above it rose the moon, which writhed between colors and eclipses between each slowed blink of her eyes. Dust-Red. Black tinged in bluish-white. Dust-Red. Rey stepped forward, extending a hand. The wood felt solid and smooth, despite all the gnarls and gashes she could see under her fingertips. They tingled._

 

_The wood tore, like water-thin cloth or a flimsy. She grabbed it with both hands, watched it ripple as she peeled it away. Behind it was stone, more a passageway than a door. It was curved, an arch, piled together into a rude curve and stuck with grey-brown clay. Rey smiled and once again brought her hand forward, expecting the glamor to rip away. From the point where her fingertip touched the invisible barrier, it began to fold and ripple in a pattern. Two fast pulses, then a pause. A Force signature? Rey leaned against the doorway, pressing her cheek into it. She slid her hand up and down. No._

 

Thump- _thump_. Thump- _thump_. Thump- _thump_. Thump- _thump-thump-thump_ \- _thump- THUMP - THUMP - THUMP THUMP - THUMP - THUMP THUMP - THUMP - THUMP_

 

_The heartbeat shattered along with the door. It cracked and flaked away like the shells of sea-bird eggs, creating rips and tears that stretched with the crowning of the new._

 

_It was metal. Cold. It sent black and purple racing up her veins and through her arms, freezing them to the point where the only thing she could feel was the dull ache inside her bones. This was no more a door than the last one, its mirror opposite. More a wall than a door, it grew from the floor as naturally as a leaf from a branch._

 

“I CAN’T DO IT! I CAN’T!” _Screams and sobs echoed from behind the barricade. Rey could feel prickles of flesh dot her arms, like needles in her skin._ “PLEASE MAKE IT STOP! IT HURTS, YOU’RE HURTING ME!”

 

_The screams lost their words, split apart and wavered. There were a multitude of voices, high, low, masculine and feminine._

 

_“Hold on!” she yelled, beating her dead hands against unfeeling ore. “I’ll help you, speak to me, say something, say anything!”_

 

_Rey backed up and twisted her shoulder into a forward position. She ran into the door with the force of the tides on sand, feeling it buckle, crash, spit her forward into the dark. The floor was sandy with the grit of ages, an eternity of dust-crushed corpses and the leavings of ghosts. The screaming steadied into sobs that choked her own throat in sympathy. The crier was one of the ghosts now._

 

_At her feet something wavered and caressed. It had been white once, stained filthy off-yellow by sweat and tears, speckled with a light mist of brown and red. The dots were so small, so close, like the dead to whom it belonged had bled a single drop from every pore. It slithered up her legs, scraping them raw, peeling skin from muscle as easily as a bird cuts through air. It slowly faded, and the sobs became wails became howling wind that got louder and louder until she heard nothing. She heard nothing and let the silent wind carry her flesh away._

 


	4. Chapter 4

“What is this, General?”

 

Kylo Ren grabbed a fistful of Hux’s shirt, lifting him as easily as he could a training dummy.

 

“Whatever are you referring to, Ren?”

 

“You know what I’m talking about, General. I doubt that Supreme Leader Snoke would find this practical joke of yours amusing, so I suggest you fix it before he finds out.”

 

Hux smiled. “I don’t really think that it needs fixing. It’s simply a document ensuring that any offspring born as a result of his orders have a legal tie to you. They could prove to be a valuable asset in the future. Especially against the Ge- ”

 

“We both know that’s not why you did it. And in case you’ve forgotten, your mind is an open book to me.”

 

SLAM

 

“Have I made myself understood, General?”

 

He slowly increased the pressure and felt the metal begin to give around Hux. Kylo pressed even harder, as the General’s face flushed scarlet. His eyes widened, and he gripped Kylo’s arm. Kylo’s fingers unclenched, and Hux fell to the floor. Kylo walked away.

 

“Get it done within the hour, or the Supreme Leader will need someone else to lead his troops.”

 

He passed through the door, thudding down the corridor that took him to Snoke’s chamber. It didn’t matter that Hux would in all likelihood be contacting the Marriage Registry Department as soon as he had collected his breath. This was inexcusable, and the General needed punishment.

 

‘ Supreme Leader. I request an audience with you. Hux has tried to interfere in my dealings with the scavenger.’

 

‘Perhaps he could achieve more progress in a day than you have in almost a month. I grow impatient with your lack of results.’

 

He rounded the corner into the room. Snoke’s eyes peeled open as if he had never opened them before. Kylo sunk onto one knee, never looking at him for long. They were separated by a long pathway, unguarded by rails or chains. Empty space, darkness, clawed at the edges. Somewhere deep down there was a floor, and a jungle of wires sending bacta and nutrients to the pod. The Supreme leader had grown very frail, trapped so long in the glass container that hid him from death’s seeking eyes.

 

‘Do not look on me with pity, Kylo Ren. I could stop the heart of anyone on this ship if I desired it. That includes you, the General, or the scavenger. Now, would you care to explain why you have nothing to show me?”

 

“Her will is strong, Supreme Leader. But she shows signs of breaking soon.”

 

‘How soon? You have told me “soon” for the past week. The Jedi may value infinite levels of patience, but I do not.’ Snoke’s eyes closed again. ‘I sensed compassion for her right after your first encounter. Is it possible that this weakness is preventing you from doing your duty?

 

Kylo Ren paused. “Of course not.”

 

‘Good. Because if I discovered that it was, I’d give her to the General. I wonder, Kylo Ren, what he’d think of the idea. Should we ask him?’

 

Hux’s footsteps thundered across the bridge as he ran at a full sprint, and he held one hand tucked beneath his arm. Kylo didn’t even need to listen carefully in order to hear his laboured breathing.

 

“ Supreme Leader ! The Resistance ships have found us, they just completed the jump from hyperdrive-” Hux screamed.

 

“They’ve come for the scavenger,” Kylo said bitterly. “Phasma said they came for the other three last week.”

 

‘The two of you, use the controls to send my pod into the shuttle, then meet me down there. I trust you’ve alr

eady ordered an evacuation, General?’

 

“Of course, Supreme Leader.”

 

‘Good. We will reconvene with our remaining forces at the unknown regions.’

 

“What about the girl?”

 

“Damn the girl, Ren, we barely have enough time to save ourselves! They could begin firing back at any second! ” Hux shrieked, flecks of spittle flying from his lips. “ She’s just a girl, a scavenger, a jedi w-!”

 

The last syllable hung incomplete in Hux’s throat. Kylo Ren’s saber cleaved a fiery line across Hux’s stomach, releasing the acrid, nostril-stinging smell of cauterized flesh. For one agonizing moment, he wasn’t aware of what he’d done. Killing the general had been as instinctive as breathing.

 

The weight of his actions fell on him all at once, and as it coursed through his veins and muscles, he felt it fall on the Supreme Leader as well.

 

“I’m saving her, Supreme Leader.” He brought his lightsaber up again. “You can’t stop me.”

 

‘YOU FOOL!’

 

Snoke’s talons pierced his mind, ripping his brain apart. Veins burst and flew; Kylo Ren pushed as hard as he could. His feet slid back, squealing black-on-black against the stone of the bridge. The stinging flies burning behind his eyes chewed away at his mind, started to strip it away to nothing beyond pain.

 

‘Save me,’ Snoke whispered into the curve of his ear. ‘ Save me and then die. I have no use for a brat like you. Die alone, unwanted, unloved. You bit the hand of the only one who ever bothered to see the gifts you had. You’re a monster.’

 

‘You’re a monster!’

 

Memory of an insult, from her. No... he had to live. Had to prove her wrong. One step. Two steps forward, one back. Kylo felt his visor start to crack and break in a line right across his eyes. Soon. Soon he would be within striking distance. Snoke’s eyes widened again, like cruel yellow suns that threatened to swallow him whole.

 

‘Defy me again, boy, and I’ll kill her.’

 

Striking distance be damned. Kylo threw his saber, guiding it into the transparisteel with a silent prayer. It struck the center, shattering in spirals like a spider’s web. The fluid wept from the cracks, hatching like an egg shell. He felt the air around him suck in. Snoke was trying to keep it from falling around him. The cracks spread wider and wider, joining ends.

 

The tube shattered, sending Snoke awash in a gush of yellowish-pink fluid. He lay there gasping and writhing, pale and shaking like a Force-forsaken embryo.

 

“The only one you’re killing today is yourself.” Kylo turned and left.

 

With each step, he could feel Snoke’s anger boil further and further. ‘ But ,’ he told himself, ‘ Who is foolish enough to fear the wrath of a dying man?’

 

Kylo ran from the bridge and flew through the corridor. He had to get to her before someone else did.

 

‘I curse you, Kylo Ren. May you never know what it is to be free of me. I will haunt you until your last breath, stalk your dreams every night. And when you think you have found relief in death’s embrace, I shall be there to greet you.’


	5. Chapter 5

Rey crashed back into the metal edge of her cot. Her eyes flew open and were immediately greeted with flashing red lights and an eruption of black smoke from the crack underneath the door. A high-pitched, honking alarm blared overhead like the ominous squawk of a carrion bird.

 

Chaos, chaos and dying and confusion screamed in her ears. She felt the holes in the Force as lives blinked out all around her. They rose and fell as one voice in many: death, fear, pandemonium.

 

Maker help me...

 

My wife!

 

GET IN A POD, YOU IDIOT, GET A POD!

 

SUPREME LEADER...

 

I don’t want to die.

 

Silence.

 

Rey ran to the door. Her hands smacked into it over and over and over; the hollow echoes went unheard.

 

“What’s happening?” she shouted. “Let me out, damn you! I can feel them dying all around me!”

 

The lights slowly flickered. The room went black, light... black again. There was no answer, not even the usual chime and warning about escape attempts resulting in termination. Rey blinked, tried to breathe deeply, but every inch of air was choked with the death rattles of the space-drowned.

 

She held her breath, subjugating the cries into softness. Inserted the force into the hair-crack in the door, now so thickly clogged with smoke that it seemed stopped up with it. Rey pulled, feeling the weight in every muscle and every thought. The door groaned and complained, struggling against her to crash back down into the floor and instead remained there undisturbed.

 

“No. Not now,” Rey spat through gritted teeth and singing joints. The bolts creaked and clanged, slowly bending, turning white.

 

‘ Please, I just need strength enough to hold. I can do the rest on my own but just enough to-’

 

It shot up like a ship into hyperspace. Rey dove through, not bothering to keep it suspended a second more than necessary. It fell with no resistance, creating a sound almost loud enough to ring in her teeth and shatter her eardrums, but she couldn’t hear it over the breaking of the engines.

 

She ran without knowing where she was running to. Artificial night swarmed the halls, with no more lighting than the deepest, most unreached depths of space. The slow roll of the ship threw her feet underneath each other, flung her up into the air to fall through corridors and rooms.

 

Rey felt broken skin all over, warm licks of blood that covered her hands and shoulders, patted clean by the soft white-grey of her prison tunic. Yet something called her on, making her legs work even faster. She dove willingly into the belly of the dying leviathan. Broken transparisteel and shards of metal sliced at exposed toes. Right, then left, left again.

 

Underneath her feet the fingers of a corpse cracked. A wave of sickness churned in her mouth, spilling from between her fingers. It splattered onto the deck, flecks spraying onto the dead man’s face.

 

‘Have to keep going. If I stop now, I’m dead. Move Rey, move. It’s not like you’ve never seen a corpse. Think of Jakku, Rey. Keep going.’

 

She stepped over the body and sped away. Instinct pulled at her hands, fear cracked a whip over her back, shouting commands inside her. Go right, right, up the ramp.

 

A bridge. Rey backed up. Something was reeling her forwards, telling her to cross. It was narrow, about two mens’ breadth in diameter, with guard rails on either side. The one on the right had fallen out of joint somewhere; she heard the chain rattle and hiss as it fell across the platform. Her heart jumped and crashed with each grate of the machinery.

 

Let the Force guide you. Cross now.

 

Rey stepped onto the bridge. It quivered back and forth, knocking her knees into each other. She raised a foot and it rocked violently and she pitched into the left rail with a heart-rending creak. Her body swung out over space and she couldn’t feel her head, her hands, her feet, her body-she was floating, she was falling- she was safe.

 

This is the only way. I can’t help you across, the bridge won’t take the weight.

 

She slid her foot up a few inches. The bridge wobbled, starting a tremor in her legs.

 

‘ A few more steps,’ she told herself. Rey closed her eyelids and took a deep breath. The Force... She felt it call her, swirling around a point on the opposite side like a hurricane.

 

She took another small step, arms outstretched. The bridge shook with each breath, each movement. It didn’t matter. Her feet felt sure, as though they’d been there before. Her strides grew longer, faster. Rey could see the bridge clearer than when her eyes were open. Missing plank there, chain reappearing there and breaking on the other side. A wet splotch that was either blood or oil.

 

The bridge groaned underneath her, changing in pitch and tune like an instrument. She forced herself to slow again. It wasn’t a question of whether she could handle it anymore, but whether the platform could.

 

The presence on the other side was more focused now, wafting along into her brain like a far-off scent. It wasn’t Luke, but it had hints of him under it

 

Almost there. Come on! Don’t think, just do it.

 

That voice. It echoed and broiled in her mind like a snatch of song. Repeating itself over and over, coming in and out of focus like a voice on a comm. It was familiar. Distant.

 

“We need to get out of here!” he roared across the short distance left. “The shuttle is a quarter mile from here, and all the pods have been used.”

 

Rey froze. As soon as the voice was audible, she placed the Force signature. That hum, that raw energy that shook her bones and rattled her mind into unease. Kylo Ren had come for her.

 

“ Get away from me!” she shouted, throwing a Force wave at him as hard as she could.

 

He held it in place with one hand and beckoned to her with the other.

 

“This isn’t the time or the place to consider your options. We have a few minutes at best to get off this Command Center before your friends at the Resistance blow this place to pieces.”

 

“They wo-”

 

“The Supreme Leader rigged this to self destruct in case of an attack. It doesn’t matter whether the rebel scum intend to kill us or not. They will if we don’t leave.”

 

Listen to him, Rey. It’s the only choice.

 

The voice in her head wasn’t his. It was a man’s, but older, calm. It brought back snatches of memory, scraps scavenged from someone else’s table, a kind face watching her play in the heat of Jakku, telling her to drink lots of water and stay in the shade until nightfall.

 

She trusted the voice then, and she trusted it now.

 

“Fine. Lead the way.”

 

They ran off together, into another labyrinth of halls. The ship’s rotation had settled, and was instead replaced with a feeling that they were gradually falling down.

 

“The nearest planet is pulling us in,”

 

The great crashes and explosions and whirring of ships overhead drowned out all other sound.

 

Rey reached for Kylo’s Force presence, the only beacon in this dark place. She dove into his head like a knife through water, feeling his self-assurance.The real question was whether that was arrogance or genuine knowledge. Rey shook the thought from her head.

 

‘ That voice said to trust him. I don’t know if I can manage that, but I can certainly use him.’

 

‘ In here , ’ he boomed into her head. They wheeled right, through a giant awning doorway pitted with holes. The hangar, where all the fastest ships had once nested. Now they were gone, and the room gaped open like a toothless mouth.

 

She knew what he was headed for: sleek, black, and thin, flashy, faster than it needed to be, and completely utterly him. The personal ship which had spirited her away from her friends the first time. It was the only one remaining, and the scratch marks by the door proved it hadn’t been left there out of laziness.

 

Kylo Ren made a swiping motion, the door fell like the bridge of a great moat.

 

“Can you even fly this thing?” she shouted incredulously, leaping up the ramp.

 

“I can fly anything I need to,” he shot back. “Get in the co-pilot chair, I’ll get us out of here.”

 

“I don’t think so. You get in the co-pilot seat yourself.” Rey swung into the black leather chair and began flipping switches. “I need help, so swallow your pride. From now on, you do as I tell you. Understand?”

 

He gave her a mocking salute and sat down in the other chair, turning nozzles and dials. “Have you ever made a hyperspace jump before?” he asked calmly.

 

Rey nodded. “All the time in sims, and once on the Falcon.”

 

“That’s very reassuring.”

 

“Shut up, you. This bucket of bolts will get us out of here. Where are we going?”

 

“Press the blue and green buttons by your left hand. It’ll show you habitable planets.”

 

Rey slammed her hand down onto the two buttons simultaneously, not even looking. She began to scan the list of planets, desperately searching for a familiar name as the ship slowly rose into the air. Suddenly, she stopped.

 

“How do we-”

 

“Red button above your head opens the hangar doors. Sure you don’t want me to drive?”

 

She scowled and clicked the button on. Far away from them, she saw the hangar door slide down, accompanied by the flashing of lights and the blaring of sirens. Kylo Ren leaned over and jabbed his finger at a name. It glowed for a second before the computer screen at her lap began calculations.

 

“ What did you click?’ she yelled over the throb of the hyperdrive cycle.

 

“I didn’t look. The name isn’t nearly as important as our distance away from here.”

 

Rey’s seat belt whipped across her lap. She looked over at Kylo Ren, who was completely unfazed and securely buckled in.

 

“Safety first,” he said simply. “Did Han Solo neglect to teach you that?”

 

The stars stretched like years before them, staining the blue-black of space with white lines. Behind them came the blood orange cloud of the Command Center’s death, billowing like a solar maelstrom. Closer and closer it swept, reaching for them in that suffocating, narrow second.

 

Then they were gone, shot into the black. The second they were in hyperspace, Rey threw off the safety harness and turned towards Kylo Ren.

 

“You’re taking me to another base, aren’t you?” she accused. “That’s why you-”

 

“Cel Fermecat. Read it yourself if you want. I’m not going to hurt you, and I have no reason to return to them.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“I killed two of their most important leaders, disobeyed orders, freed our most valuable prisoner, and have acted in a very unpredictable way in the past. I think I’d rather take my chances with one person who wants to kill me than millions.”

 

“Who did you kill?” she asked suspiciously.

 

“Supreme Leader Snoke and General Hux,” was his calm answer.

 

“Because you didn’t want to kill me?” Her throat felt very tight.

 

“I suppose you could put it that way. Hux insisted we leave you behind while the whole place went to pieces, and Snoke objected with my methods of dealing with him.”

 

Silence.

 

“Why? Why would you kill for me? I’ve only met you a few times.”

 

“Who can say why we do anything?”

 

“Don’t just answer my questions with philosophical bantha droppings.”

 

“Shouldn’t someone who has never once received an answer be used to not being told?” he chuckled slightly beneath the mask. “Something bigger than myself drove me to, Rey.

Whether it was the force or l... something else, I don’t know.” He spread his arms and legs. “You can search if you want. I have no weapons, and neither do you. We’re equals.”

 

“If I ever become your equal, I won’t be able to live with myself.” She swept her hand over him, allowing the Force to search for her. Tiny needles wove over every surface. She found no metal at all, just the sleek blackness of his leather and rough cloth. “What happened to your saber?”

 

“It’s currently orbiting an unknown planet, perhaps deciding where to go on vacation.”

 

“Be quiet, is that the planet there?” She pointed. It was small, emerald green and light blue dashes.

 

“The navicomp says so.”

 

“Good.”

 

‘ Once we’re there, I’ll overpower him and take the ship to the ba- ’ Reality hit her over the head. Finn and Poe had been captured, and they knew where the base was. As soon as Leia heard, she would have moved everyone. Rey didn’t know where the new base was.

 

“So,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “You really aren’t going to try and kill me, or do anything like that?”

 

“No. Are you?”

 

Through the Force, Rey sensed his words were true. He wasn’t going to harm her.

 

‘ Either that or he’s a masterful liar, ’ chimed the voice in her head.

 

She gripped the controls, bringing the ship into a gentle curve, deeper and deeper into the atmosphere. Forests and lakes were all over, no deserts or oceans, like Takodana almost, but much flatter.

 

“ Make sure to land in the daylit side .”

 

“I’m perfectly aware of that, thank you.”

 

Rey pulled into the sky, the green of trees becoming more and more distinct. Grass, tall and thick, waved in tiny clearings, never large enough to give her a space to land.

 

“There.” He placed a mental image of a specific clearing in her head.

 

She landed in the clearing he showed her. The black ship hung for a moment over the soft grass, lighting down like a great black bird into its nest. It hummed quietly, most systems at rest. Rey jumped up from her seat and ran towards the back. She slammed her hand down on the exit ramp button and watched its slow, maddening descent.

 

He followed closely behind, watched her tumble into the wet grass. Her smile was barely contained, and the edge of her shift flapping in the wind, revealing a pair of long, toned legs. Rey sat up, the grin fading from her face.

 

“What’s that under there?” She crawled underneath the ship and showed him a mental image of something blinking red.

 

“Tracking device.” He took it from her and turned it over. “Blackfly 907, works as long as the ship is on.”

 

“Then we need to leave. And fast.”

 

“No.” He turned his back to her, fists clenched. “Right now, the First Order is in complete and utter chaos. They aren’t worried about tracing us yet. But within a few hours, they’ll start wondering, and that’s when they would look. We have to stay... here.”

 

Kylo Ren raised his hand and turned off the engine with a wave. Then he looked up and threw a rock into the ship. It ricocheted , leaving a shining dent in the hull. He stalked over to the nearest tree and began hammering his fists into it over and over again. Rey watched, disgusted.

 

“Right. I’m going to go do some looking about. When you’re done throwing a tantrum, do something useful.”


	6. Chapter 6

She fled into the woods before he could look up, feeling his presence and anger fading with every step. Yet it still clung stubbornly to the corners of her mind. The trees were gargantuan, ornamented with leaves of jade and twittering birds. Her stomach grumbled uncomfortably. Destruction had come before galactic standard noon, and she was hungry.

 

‘No,’ she told herself. ‘You’ve lasted longer than this before. Listen. With all the plants here, there has to be a water source.’

 

Rey clambered through brush and grass, sticks and flowers in search of a river, a stream, a brook. A bush grew right by her path, littered with sleek, shining blue berries. Carefully, she pulled one off a cluster, crushed it between her fingers. The stain was deep blood red, and smelled tart and bitter. It fell into the grass. She stared at it doubtfully a moment, then kept going. Plants were alien to her, and she didn’t want to play roulette with her life.

 

From across the forest, she could hear a loud honking noise and splashes. Rey slipped to her toes, moving as quietly as she could. Mud squished between her toes, and the trees opened up to reveal a field of rushing water. In it was a whirling flock of river birds, each feathered peppery grey. On the shore, two stood shaking off, feathers puffed up. She bent down slowly, grasping a rough, rounded stone. It was heavy in her hands. Rey slung it through the air and watched it spin and shoot closer... closer...

 

It caught the nearest bird in the chest, sending it feet over head, until it lay there still. Dead. The other shrieked and took to the air. The whirlpool of waterbirds lifted into the air, flying overhead. Rey scooped up two more rocks and lobbed them into the cloud. One missed, the other connected with a scrawny, patchily-feathered bird.

 

  
Her footsteps rustled the tall green grass, bathed in a dew that should have dried long ago. Kylo Ren stood with his back to her, rummaging through a pile of hidden items.

 

“Your legs are scratched. There’s a spare set of my clothes on the bunk in the back.”

 

“So’s your face. I brought food.” She dropped the glass-eyed birds onto the table. He stared at them for a moment.

 

“We have food.”

 

“Really? Is that what this is?” She fingered a box. “Divided between the two of us, it’ll last a week. I have no way to contact the Resistance, and your precious First Order has self-destructed. If we don’t supply our own food, we’ll run out. So save the rations and water for emergencies only.”

 

“As you wish.” He started sorting again, putting the ration boxes off to the left. “You should consider my offer. Running around wearing only a shift... it can’t be comfortable.”

 

He watched her from behind the mask, shadowing every rise and fall of her chest, every soft gesture of her hands as she pawed through the remaining supplies piled up on the table. A medikit, bottles of water and rations. A knife, some blankets. A firestarter, and a few plates and cups. Metal.

 

“Is this everything?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Rey snatched the bowl, knife, and firestarter off the table and headed back outside. The feathers pulled out easily, soft in her hands with small ripping sounds that revealed yellow-pinkish flesh. She scraped the edge of the knife against the grain of the remaining feathers, pulling out barbs with her other hand. Off came the feet, the heads, the oil gland.

 

Plenty of dry grass riddled the edges of the clearing, much to her relief. She made a small, precarious pile in a bare spot, lower lip stuck out in concentration. Firestarter in one hand and a knot of brown grass in the other.

 

Click

 

Click

 

“Damn it,” she muttered, snapping the switch over and over. “Work.”

 

The tip smoldered, but any spark was killed by the time her thumb left the button. Rey growled, trying to remember how this worked.

 

“Haven’t had to do this since I fixed the stove, and that was years and years ago.”

 

“So not since right after you were abandoned?”

 

Rey almost snapped the firestarter in half.

 

“You have no right to talk about that,” she hissed, turning around to stare at him face to face. Her fingers flew of their own accord, jabbing with every word. “I never wanted you to know that. What you did in that room was inexcusable, and because of one forced entry into my mind, you think you know me. You don’t. You won’t ever.”

 

“5,124.”

 

A look of confusion skipped across her face in time with her heartbeat.

 

“What?”

 

“5,124 nights on Jakku. I felt them all as acutely as you did. Every double-mooned sky that gave way to sunrises, every pain of hunger and loneliness. It was as real as if I’d been the one abandoned there. I saw them just as you saw the fear in my mind, the loneliness, the isolation. I do know you. We’re the same, deep down.” He paused. “We are lonely people, Rey.”

 

Rage flared deep inside her, burning into a solid, palpable hatred. She crammed her hand into the pile of feathers and viscera and grabbed onto something hard. It bolted through the air, spinning directly at his face.

 

He stopped the bird head, never moving a single muscle.

 

“ We aren’t! ” she bellowed “You aren’t capable of understanding anyone, you’re a monster, a sociopath! You killed Han Solo, your father! You tortured my friends, and just because we’re alone doesn’t mean I’m just going to forget that!”

 

The head whooshed over her left shoulder, dangerously close.

 

“You think I enjoyed killing him? He was a thief, a scoundrel, and a liar, but I still-”

 

The other head smacked into his mask, splattering a tail of blood down onto his forehead.

 

“You’re of the Dark Side! It’s what you do!!”

 

“ The Light is no better! Judgemental, revealing, never allowing for any flaws, and rejecting those who can’t kill every desire that crosses their-”

He returned the volley. Rey ducked and grabbed it as it sailed overhead.

 

“So you think hedonism and cruelty are better? Unforgivable.” She shook her head and started to back away. “You’re incapable of realizing what you’ve done, aren’t you?”

He held out a gloved hand. “You don’t understand. Darkness is just as much a part of the Force as the Light is. Two sides of the same coin. You hate me because you don’t understand me.”

 

“I’ve had enough of you.” Rey threw up her arms and headed into the forest.

 

‘ Don’t even think about following me!’ she thought fiercely, right as Kylo Ren shifted his weight.

 

She dove into the sanctuary of trees and brush, hidden from everything but the Force. The limbs spiraled and bowed at every available inch, varying heights and thicknesses like stairs. She ran her hand across the rough, scratching bark and smiled. Thick emerald moss draped across the northwards sides, embroidered with ivy and dotted with small pearl-like buds.

 

Deeper and deeper she delved, wrapped in the opiate of birdsong and cool breeze. Spicy nectar filled the air, the scent of wildflowers unknown to the galaxy or anyone beyond this planet. There were purple and white dewdrops whose patterns seemed like spots of ink in a pot of water and red firebursts that waved and bent with the touch of insects. Rey plucked one and tucked it behind her ear.

 

She continued walking in this almost magical place for a long while. The pillowy ground shifted under her feet, changing from grass and leaves to uniformly-broken rock. Rey paused to look at it more clearly.

 

It was marbled grey and white, with small black flecks like flies on cream. The stone was straight edged and smooth apart from the occasional scratch.

 

“Tiles?” she whispered softly, and looked around. The flat earth was littered with these, each about two feet apart. She stepped from one to the next.The path of marbled stone guided her around and around, bringing the circle tighter and tighter. The tiles seemed to number in the hundreds, the thousands, the millions. The forest floor became more and more concave with each pass, until she stood with her toes pressed against the lip of a hole.

 

Fresh, cool air whistled up against her tunic, flapping it gently. Rey knelt and ran her hand as far down as it would reach. No ladder. She laid herself down flat, and inhaled deeply. No undertone of fur, feces, or blood.

 

“Not an animal den,” she told herself, and looked around.

 

Directly to her right was a small chunk of broken-off stone. She tossed it up briefly, then dropped it down the hole. Less than two seconds later it clattered against another hard surface. Rey paused. No scurrying of feet or sudden bellows of rage. Not a sou seemed to reside in that place underground.

 

Rey slowly slid down into the hole, fingers digging rents into the earth. Small plants and curled-up vines clung as tightly to the sides as she did. Deeper and deeper down she clambered, the coiled and twisted roots of ancient trees providing handholds and nooks to steady her.

 

Her feet swung, toes bumping across frigid and dusty stone. The air whispered cool and sweet in her ears, fetching with it the scent of clear running water and musky darkness. Rey extended a hand to the wall. It scratched at her palm, roughly hewn and spun with webs. She recoiled, disgusted by the sticky texture.

 

From deep within glowed a faint blue light, ebbing and echoing like the last beams of sunlight across the ocean. Rey stumbled down the hallway, her feet seemingly striking against every rock and pebble in her way.

 

Apart from the initial entrance, the walls were completely free of vegetation. Instead they served as a spider nursery with archways and tapestries, curtains and coverlets. Puffs of dust jumped around her feet as she steadily moved towards the light.

The small hall opened up into a large chamber, very open, with no furniture or windows. In the very center were several circular stone rings, raised like steps. The dryness in her throat became unbearable. Inside the rings came the bubble and drip of the fragrant water whose scent seasoned the corridors. Smooth marble, its contents untainted by algae, dust, or anything impure. A number of holes puckered the sides, but no water entered or left the basin, and no machinery hummed to keep it full.

 

She hesitated, then dipped her hand in. Cool. Like a stream. Rey smiled. Off came the prison gown and smallclothes, in went her feet. Dirt ballooned and swirled through the water like deep brown ink. Rey sighed and sunk in the rest of the way, scrubbing twenty-four days worth of oil, sweat, and filth from her body.

 

“This is heavenly,” she sighed to herself, pouring water from cupped hands down the crown of her head. “I could stay here forever.”

 

‘ What’s to stop you?’ the voice in her head asked. ‘ There’s fresh water, and you can hunt ...’

 

Rey shook her head, watched the dirt swim through the holes.

 

“No... He wouldn’t rest until he found me.” She scrubbed under her arms a bit harder than necessary. “I’ll never be free of him.”

 

Rey sunk underwater and blew frustrated bubbles, closing her eyes and ears and mind to everything around her. No thoughts, just plugging up the hole in her chest. Finn, and Poe, and Luke. Where were they? Still in prison somewhere else? It was tempting, the idea to steal the ship and run away. But that stupid tracking device was still there, red and blinking underneath the carriage.

 

‘ Don’t worry, Rey ,’ she told herself. ‘ It doesn’t make sense for them to attack Snoke’s personal space station first. Especially since they didn’t know where it was. ’

 

How did Poe handle it? Her heart twisted. He’d told her stories about the torture he’d suffered at the hands of torture droids, generals, and doctors with sharp instruments and sharper minds. The only reason she’d been spared from torture was because of Kylo Ren.

 

A chill passed over her body. She shivered and climbed out from the fountain, covered in cold pink skin and gooseflesh all over. She slipped the shift over her head, striking excess water from her arms.

 

“If I come back wet, that wouldn’t be good,” she said to the empty room. “I should do some more looking around until my hair is dry, at least.”

 

Beyond the fountain were twelve corridors of various shapes and sizes, leading to sets of stairs or hallways. After a quick examination of each, she selected the smallest.

 

It led to a series of what seemed to be dormitories, small, bare rooms with bunks of stone carved into the walls. The tenants had been artists; rusted stone tools and clay jars age-baked with pigments lay on the floor. There were no droppings, or any signs of life. The marks carved over the entryway were faded and not Aurebesh. They were rings of circles, linked together in differing patterns, and above every doorway was the same pattern as the fountain in the main hall. These rooms were almost bare, with nothing to tell her about age or culture except the strange runes. All in all, there were twenty-four of them.

 

“A temple?” she said to herself. “An academy?”

 

A secret dream wove itself then, a new Jedi temple located here on this tiny, green planet. A rebirth, an awakening with Luke and herself at the center.

 

‘ And Kylo would destroy it again, ’ she thought bitterly ‘ But maybe if I just... don’t tell him, or think about it that often. ’

 

Rey ran her fingers through her hair. It was passable, and would be bone dry after the walk back in the hot sun. She couldn’t risk him coming after her and finding this place. With one last longing look, she began her journey back.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

“I saved you a portion,” he held out a large metal cup filled with steaming, uniformly brown liquid.

 

She took it in silence and sat down. He watched her carefully, as he always did. Rey held the broth up to her nose and sniffed. The meat was obviously from the birds, shaved down to miniscule portions, and mixed with flecks of scarlet.

 

“What’s this?” She frowned.

 

“Red-Grass seed.”

 

She took a sip, tasting soft meats and stringy seeds. It wasn’t as good as the Resistance food, but it was better than anything she’d had in over a month. It was a flat taste, but the grass seeds and their strands had a tart, tangy flavor. Rey shot back the rest of the liquid in one gulp, then began fishing out the solids with her finger, barely chewing.

 

“Tell me about Jakku.” The request thudded from his mouth as soon as she’d devoured the last scrap of meat. She swallowed.

 

“Desert planet. Western reaches of the inner room, one sun, two lunar satellites. Breathable atmosphere for most humanoid species-”

 

“This again? I’m beginning to think you don’t want to talk to me.”

 

“Shouldn’t you know everything from being inside my head?” she scoffed.

 

“Tell me about the people, Rey. The births. The deaths. The weddings.”

 

She paused, her fingers stopping their trail through the meaty grease that clung wastefully to the metal plate. She spoke basic, very well in fact. But that last word... Wedding. It had to be something important, if he placed it in with deaths and births... but she’d never heard it before.

 

“The people? I suppose they’re like people anywhere. Beneath your notice. They live and die as anyone does. Never a big fuss, doing what they can to get by.”

 

“So no real celebrations?”

 

“No. Children die so often that births aren’t really a thing to celebrate. And a death is considered a good one if the body is retrieved in one piece. They’re usually burned, if they’re found at all. Burial wouldn’t last long with all the sandstorms, and nobody wants to be killed by their grandmother’s flying corpse.”

 

“You didn’t say anything about the weddings.”

 

Her hesitation was brief, but traitorous. In that half second of silence he knew what she was hiding.

 

“You don’t know what that is, do you?”

 

“Well, it can’t be very important if we’ve managed to do without it for Maker knows how long,” she scoffed, trying to ignore the stupid prickings in the back of her neck.

 

“What do two people on Jakku do when they decide they want to spend the rest of their lives together?”

 

“Oh. You just move all your belongings into the same dwelling, don’t you?” Rey asked, completely perplexed.

 

“Normally in human cultures, it’s a big deal. Usually a religious figure officiates, and all their family and friends gather to watch. There’s special clothing worn by those getting married, and-”

 

“All that fuss over a promise to be together no matter what? Is it really necessary? I mean, you’d still be married without all the bits and pieces wouldn’t you?”

 

“I suppose, as long as it was official.”

 

“The important thing about it ought to be how you feel, not how much bother it causes you,” she declared, with a tone of finality.

 

Kylo said nothing. His gaze seemed to be riveted on anything other than her: the trees, the floor of the ship, the sky. Rey huffed and rolled her eyes. Why initiate a discussion on culture if you wanted to stop after two minutes? She stood, brushed the crumbs from her tunic, and walked to the back of the ship. Neatly folded on the bunk were the spare robes and the thread and needle from the medikit. The knife drifted lazily behind her, coming down gently next to the other supplies. Rey frowned and picked them up.

 

“That’s your bed,” he said, not turning to look at her. “I’ll sleep in one of the chairs.”

 

  
Rey flexed her cramping hands. It felt like days had gone by, but logically she knew it had been a few hours at the most. She looked at the results. It was much too warm to use the heavy black robes, so she’d cast them aside in favor of the pants. The bottom half of the pant legs lay on the floor beside her, shredded into strips.

 

Rey felt much more herself now, with pants on her legs, and arm coverings. Carefully, she stuck the knife into the belt around her waist and looked at the remaining strip. Her hair was rough, never more than finger-combed. It felt odd, lying there on her neck and shoulders. She wasn’t used to it at all. She held the tie with two fingers of her left hand, and with the other, she twisted her hair into a firm knot. Her vision was blurred, her head ached with fatigue. But she felt more like herself with her hair up again. Rey snapped the blade back into the handle and looked around. There was a small drawer in the space below the bunk. Slowly, silently, she pulled it open. It was practically empty except for a flat, rectangular piece of plastisteel.

 

“A holopic?” she whispered to herself, and hurriedly looked over to where Kylo sat at the table, unmoving. Hurriedly, she stowed the knife inside and shut the drawer.

 

Night was as black as night could be inside the ship, with only the cracked eye of the moon to tease them with the possibility of light. Creaking, barefoot steps crept closer and closer behind her. Kylo Ren stood by the bed, unmoving, not caring that his force signature bled bittersweet hurt and worry all over her. He sighed deeply, voice naked and breathy. Something settled on top of her, warm and soft. His hands moved over her body, tucking the ends of the blanket over her feet and shoulders. The footsteps receded. Barely moving, she turned her head to watch.

 

His mask was gone, leaving his face pale, stained blue by inky night. Sharp nose and folded mouth, one dark eye. The scar she knew was there was hidden from her by the dark. The feelings he dripped onto her soaked through her skin, filling her with an inexplicable sense of sadness.

 

We are lonely people, Rey.

 

His force presence faded with distance, a low hum. Then it slowly sputtered out like a dying candle, lulled with sleep. Rey sat up slowly, eased the drawer underneath her open with the force. She leaned down and pressed the button on the holopic. It was old, and not very bright any more, but she could make out a faint shape. A man, a woman, and a little boy. His family. He had saved a holo of his family.

 

She shut the drawer and nestled back into the bed, unsure of how to proceed. She curled up tighter in her cloth nest, the air thick on her tongue like back on Jakku. Dry mouthed, with silence built of bricks, never once daring to break it. The warm smell of cloth flooded her nostrils, drowning her in memories that swirled like veiled dancers.

 

Soft blankets, a warm-milk smell, and nights spent watching the dawn stretch like egg yolk over the horizon. These swaddled her thumping heart, softened the blows against her ribs, gently pulled it into a dreaming waltz.

 


	8. Chapter 8

  
“What are these?” She pointed to a pile of greens and roots.

 

“You said yourself that we needed to find food. So I did,” he responded calmly.

 

“Okay, so you found some plants. How do you know that they won’t kill us both?”

 

“Despite what you think, I’m not stupid. Part of my training included foraging.”

 

“What are they called?”

 

“This one is Red-Grass.” He held up a feathery red plant. “The roots are bastil, and the leaves are from the same plant. They call the leaves reven. The dark green balls are creiap, and that plant over there is sparkle mint.”

 

Rey fingered a fragrant frond. It bled clear-green juice on her fingertips. She sniffed. The reven leaves had a dark, meaty smell.

 

“If we’re going to be here for a while, I should set up some traps. There’s probably more of those birds around and some other edible creatures as well.”

 

He nodded. “You’re very good at that, aren’t you?”

 

“I am,” she said proudly. “It kept my things from being stolen for- what was it? 5,124 nights and days. It cost one or two thieves an arm and a leg.”

 

He chuckled from beneath the mask. “Very well. Do you want to see where I found these?”

She nodded, and they set off into the woods. The herbs grew in bushes, or in the shade of thick old trees. Specific ones, she found out.

 

“This one can be boiled into a sort of gruel, but you can’t eat too much of it, or you’ll get sick.” He handed her a purple bud.

 

“Experience?” She raised an eyebrow.

 

“It would be a terrible idea to eat the leaves of this plant here. Death would come in just a few hours.” He changed the subject abruptly.

 

“Well then why did you pick it and put it on the table?”

 

“I didn’t want you to find any and eat it.”

 

In the mornings, he would make her breakfast, sticking around to make sure she had eaten it all. Then they would walk out to the forest. He’d point to a plant, ask her its name, properties, and whether it could be eaten. Rey didn’t have a gift for remembering all of the names, but she could always remember whether or not they were edible. She would check her traps and cast stones at birds.

 

“Do you regret it?” she asked him one day.

 

“Killing Han Solo?”

 

“All of it, really. Turning against Luke, killing people.”

 

“Snoke ordered it, so I did as he commanded. Sometimes I enjoyed it, other times...”

 

“How long ago? Leia said he’s been in your head as long as she could remember.”

 

“As long as I can, too.” He paused. “But it doesn’t matter. I’ve killed him, I’m free.”

 

“Then why don’t you take off your mask?”

 

He hesitated. Fear dripped onto the plant he was stripping of leaves. “I don’t want you to see me.”

 

“You mean the scar? I’ve already seen you look far uglier.”

 

“You have. That doesn’t mean I want you to see it again. Watch out for that plant over there, it causes a rash if you touch it.”

 

“He loved you, you know. He loved you so much that he never spoke your name around us.”

 

“You think I don’t know? You think I couldn’t feel what was in his mind as he died?” His fists clenched. “He forgave me and asked me to forgive him.”

 

“Have you?” She took the plant and put it in their sack.

 

“I don’t know,” he responded and stalked off to another clump of plants.

 

She watched his back, the bent shoulders. She felt pity, and something more: a kind of recognition, a resonance coming off of him. It waved and shimmered in the air, lighting down to rest in her ear. His thoughts.

 

I am so sorry.

 

The next few mornings, he was gone when she woke up. Her breakfast was left on the table along with a mug of water, and a small white flower. She picked it up and inhaled the soft perfume. Every day the flowers increased in number, knotted together with a slender strand of hope.

 

At night they whittled away the dark night with stories and jokes. Rey even surprised herself the first time she told him “Goodnight.” She was even more surprised to hear him return it. She began to see the boy the General raised, rather than the monster she remembered. His voice was soft beneath the mask, and before long it spoke in her mind. These rituals of theirs made her feel warm in the cold night. In spite of herself, she began to feel more than pity and anger.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

They had been there for almost four months when a pain ripped through her mind, bleeding and sharp. It was laced with silent cries of her name, a plea for help. Then silence, and his familiar place in her mind dried away. Rey leapt from the trap she was working on and flew through the forest, paying no mind to branches slicing her face or to the brambles carving her feet.

 

“ KYLO!” she yelled. “KYLO, KYLO WHERE ARE YOU?”

 

Rey took a deep breath. “BEN?”

 

Her only reply was a shaky gasp from a patch of tall grass. Rey ran over, clearing the way with her hands. In a hollow in the center, Ben lay in a pool of his own blood, five deep gouges raking his chest.

 

“Can you hear me? What did this to you?” she whispered, unbuttoning his cloak.

 

He was silent. Gently, she clasped the back of his mask and pulled it off of his face. It gave a soft hiss. Rey tossed it off to the side and softly slapped his cheek. He was breathing, but his eyes were shut. The scar violently bisected his face, angry pink flesh against the moon-white of his face.

 

“Okay, I’m going to get you home. This might hurt a bit.” She pulled the cloak out from under him and tied it around his midsection. Rey bent down and sat him up, then flopped him onto her shoulders. He was heavy, almost too heavy for her knees to even stand. Rey gasped, and gritted her teeth. She pulled a thin sheet of the Force underneath his body, putting some of the weight onto that.

 

Staring right at her deep in the grass was a pair of golden eyes. She returned the gaze for just a moment, then began the long run home, begging him all the while not to die.

 

“Ben... Oh my... Ben...” she gasped, sliding him down from her shoulders to the floor. Whatever it was had gotten him by surprise. Curved rents of flesh in his chest criss-crossed pale white scars. She ran a hand under the sweat-caked hair clinging to his forehead. Clammy.

 

“Ben. Kylo... Ren... Ben! Damn you, say something!” Rey pleaded, reaching for the waterskin and cloth. “Say something irritating, maddening, please!

 

Her body shook all over, but her hands were steady. It was an orderly sort of panic, instinct buried under white noise. She pulled the wet (Oh Maker, it was soaked) shredded shirt off of him, lifted him up, and placed it underneath. His breath was soft and shaky, blowing through the tiniest gap in between his lips, but she loved it. In the most secret part of her, she loved that tiny breath ferociously.

  
Rey took a deep breath, gently cleaning, pulling on the strands of the Force around her, just like

Master Luke had taught her. She pictured each vein, stitching it shut with the energy she found around them. The cloths dripped pink. She pressed harder and then looked up.

 

“Bacta, bacta, where’s the-” she muttered, running over her own feet to reach the medikit.

 

Her fingers groped the handle, fumbling for a grip before running back. Rey dropped the kit next to him with a loud clang that was answered by a grumble of thunder. A storm. The container was still sealed shut, and her blood-slippery hands only made it harder to wrench open. She gritted her teeth, muscles straining. Harder. Harder.

 

It popped free, sending up a small wave of bacta. Rey jammed her fingers into it, scooped up a generous portion of gel, and set the jar down carefully before pulling the rags off of him. She spread the bacta throughout the canals of muscle and skin, thanking the Maker, the Force, that he was no longer bleeding. The bacta would heal him up, but...

 

“Need a way to keep it clean,” she whispered to herself, brow furrowed. Rey looked back at the kit.

 

Before her frantic search and toss, a white roll of bandages had nestled neatly into the top-right corner. It was thin, white, and somewhat small. She gazed at it doubtfully for a second before grabbing the roll and peeling out a strip. Gently, Rey put a hand under his shoulder and lifted. She reached around, passing the unfurling roll to her other hand. Down. Around and up. Down. Around and up. Down, until the wounds were buried underneath. At the end, just enough remained to tie a securing knot.

 

Rey sat back and let out a long sigh. There seemed to be more color in his cheeks, dappling white and red. The tiny breath had grown larger and a bit louder with each second the bacta had begun its repairs. Stress pounced upon her as fear fled, aging her a thousand years in an instant. Her heart knocked ribs out of place with quick, strong thuds. Her eyes slid up and down his body. There were shallow scratches on his arm, like afterthoughts. Very slowly, she reached out to take his hand.

 

‘ If he wakes up I’ll just say I was taking his pulse,’ Rey told herself.

 

The underside of his palm was slashed open, right across. She stared at it blankly. A smear of red-brown blood colored his stark white skin. Somehow it was even worse than the mauling on his stomach. Absentmindedly, she reached for the now-gone roll of bandage while the tears rose up and obscured her vision. They weren’t soft and easy tears; they were small, dry, and stinging.

 

‘ Maker ,’ she cried inside her buzzing head. ‘What would I have done if you’d gone? How could I be alone again, like on Jakku?”

 

Rey lifted Ben’s hand up and pressed his bloodied knuckles to her quivering lips. It was only then that the tears slipped from her eyes and slid down her cheeks. Her shoulders started shaking and her breath stuck in her throat, repeating and falling in the valley between her collarbones. She kissed his hand over and over, her warm sobs pulsing in between the spaces of his fingers.

 

With one hand, she reached down and wiggled her small hunting knife free from the leg strap. Carefully, Rey folded his hand down onto his stomach and turned her attention to the hem of her tunic. She made a small incision, ripping downwards through the hem. Then Rey firmly grasped the end and tore the whole way around. To keep it clean, she wrapped one end about her hand. It was long, and more or less still white.

 

As she began to enfold his palm in the cloth, unraveling the loops from her own, his fingers bent slightly. Halfway done, she stopped, and her eyes flew up to watch his face.

 

His features twisted, like he’d been woken up from a deep sleep by a full blast of morning sun. Slowly they fell back into placidity. His eyelids parted, and he was looking at her. His eyes, oh Maker, his eyes. Wet and black and soft with lashes. He sat up.

 

“You’ve been crying.” He reached up a hand to stroke the tear stains from her face. She leaned in closer.

 

“I was thinking of how much work it’ll be to scrub all of this off of the ship’s floor. You’re a bloody mess.” She tried to give a joking half-smile, but it was contaminated by a small choke.

 

“Rey.”

 

There it was. The first time she’d heard him say her name without the mask torturing his voice into a mechanized monstrosity. It warmed her, chilled her. The feeling... she floated in the middle of two dueling currents, kept buoyant and still by opposing energies.

 

“If you’d died, I’d’ve been forced to reanimate you through the Force and make you mop up,” Rey whispered, not entirely sure how to respond. Half of Ben’s mouth twitched up into a smirk reminiscent of Han Solo, and he leaned in closer. Closer.

 

His lips were soft. Rey wasn’t sure why, but she had half expected him to feel hard, to hurt. But it didn’t. He didn’t. His nose brushed against the side of hers, and she would have smiled if not for the fact that he had rolled her plump lower lip between his own with a deep, mewling growl. His hand fell suddenly on her cheek, branding her soul like white-hot iron. It felt nice, it felt alive, like the Force, like a heartbeat in a place deeper than her chest.

 

She felt him around her, in her, of her, felt his pain, happiness as sharp and hot as her own. His hunger drove his hands to leave his wounds and roam her flesh. Starving fingers brushed her shoulders, neck, her hair. Rey’s own hands seemed to be stone or else had grown into her lap. Yet in the grooves of his fingertips clung something else, a thin thread that held him back in his wanderings. A half-second hesitation. Fear.

 

Rey unclasped her lips from his to nudge his cheek with her forehead. His hand snaked up through her half-bound hair, pulling it free of its ties. He soothed back the brown waves and breathed in deeply.

 

“Why are you afraid?” she whispered, ghosting her lips across his goosebump-ridden neck.

 

His fingers tightened around the roots of her hair and pulled Rey in closer to him. He silenced her with a smooth slip of the hand, down from shoulder to waist and thigh.

 

“I’m not afraid.”

 

Ben’s hand shook, fumbling at the torn hem. Rey soothed his rising pulse with kisses, wet and small. It was hot, salted with sweat and jumped with every touch of the tip of her tongue.

 

“Are you sure?” She gazed up at him through her lashes. Rey caught his quivering hand between her own and brought it up to her chest. It lay there on her heart, jumping with each beat. Ever so slowly, she dragged it down and let go.

 

Ben hesitantly ran a thumb across the yielding swell of her breast. She sighed softly and closed her eyes. Callouses on his palm and the hardness of his hands contrasted with the soft hunger in his eyes.

 

“Why would I be afraid of you?” he murmured, moving his lips and teeth to tug and pull at her earlobe. “You’re so small. Mmm... but strong.”

 

“Stronger than you,” she countered, freeing her hands, only to trap them again in the curling midnight of his hair. “In case you forgot.”

 

He stiffened, turning to stone under skin.

 

“I haven’t,” he growled, tearing himself away from her.

 

Ben stood up, pushing her away gently with a soft, angry grunt. She reached for his hand, and he pulled it away, eyes half-lidded and sharp with fright. It moved as if on its own, reaching up to his face and tracing the hot lick of scar that split him in two.

 

“I haven’t forgotten this. What I w- am. What I’ve done to you and so many more. What I almost had to do.”

 

Her heart pounded, her flesh raised as if to reach for him. No.

 

“I don’t care.” She went after him, towards the broad shoulders that bore so heavy a weight. “If I had a problem with what we were doing, don’t you think I would have said something?”

 

He shook, covering the face that he had tried so hard to hide from himself and her. She reached out, traced a curve down the sweep of his spine. His muscles were iron, baked to steel.

 

“Talk to me.” It was a plea, clothed in the false garb of a command. Rey wove her arms around his waist, knotting them together at the hard wash of his stomach. “You areafraid. I can feel it too.”

 

The hair on her arms stood up as he slowly brushed up and down.

 

“I’ll hurt you. That’s what I’ve always been best at. Hurting anyone who tries to help, pushing them away...”

 

“Then don’t push me away.”

 

“It isn’t that easy, Rey.”

 

She pressed her lips to the bump at the base of his neck and unwound her hands to caress the smooth scar tissue that cupped his side. Her breasts molded against his back, and she waited.

 

“Why don’t you hate me? You said yourself that I’m a monster.”

 

“Shhhhhh.”

 

“I need to know.”

 

Rey exhaled, emptying herself of breath, and air, and blood, until she was nothing but touch and heartbeat. It thrummed against his skin with every beat, and she raised her arms to rest her hands on his heart. They beat separately, hers lagging quietly a half-second behind. Ben’s quietly bled hurt all through his veins, an ache dull and rough as sand.

 

“I don’t know why I love you,” she admitted quietly. “I just know that I do. As surely that I-I know that there are stars in the sky and fish in the sea. You felt the same, didn’t you?”

 

“I didn’t love you. I was obsessed,” he said quietly. His nails dug right into her skin, pinning her tight to his body. “There’s a big difference.”

 

“Do you love me now?”

 

He pulled her hands away and turned, keeping one wrist tight within his grasp. His eyes smoked and smoldered, the sparks stirring her soul.

 

“What do you think?”

 

Rey kissed him again. He stirred down below, pressed insistently against her stomach.

 

“I’m not sure I can think at the moment,” she gasped softly. His tongue ran roughly between her lips, hot and wet and dizzying.

 

A spike of satisfaction hiked up in his chest. Ben broke off the kiss and dove downwards. His arm swept across her knees, scooping her up into his chest. Rey yelped and smacked his shoulder.

 

“What are you doing? You’ll hurt yourself.”

 

His lips and teeth crashed into hers, swallowing her complaints with a flick of his tongue. Rey whimpered into his mouth, blood flushing her lips full and swollen. Every step he took thudded up and down her spine, and she almost tore her away from his mouth to beg him to move faster.

 

He dumped Rey onto the bunk unceremoniously, clambering on top of her in a tangle and knot of legs and prison gown. Ben’s fingers wound around the edge of her shift, tugging it out from under her. Breath hissed low and deep from his flared nostrils. She knocked his hands away, pulling the tunic up and over her head with a soft shhhhk of fabric.

 

His eyes drank her in like a blind man who’d never seen the sun. His gaze fell from sun-spotted shoulders to her bare breasts. Ben swallowed. She crossed her hands over them and looked away.

 

“Kriff, Rey. You’re beautiful. I can’t believe you’re...real.”

 

Rey’s cheeks exploded scarlet. She slowly gazed up, drawn in by the hunger in his mouth and eyes. His hands crept up to her breasts, thumbs rubbing across the center. He leaned in, slowly driving her to lie back against the leather softness of the bunk. His tongue danced across the swell of her throat, skimming down to trace the ridge of collarbone. Down, down. Rey laughed quietly. It tickled, leaving a prickling trail down her chest and onto her breasts.

 

She felt for the waistband of his trousers, and the inside of her wrist brushed against the firm mound at the front of his pelvis. Ben let out a throaty rumble, raised his hips to grind against her hand. She pushed back in circles, slipping her hand into his pants and pulling down.

 

His mouth latched onto the small bump of her nipple, sucking and pulling gently, raising it with waves of heat and pleasure. The noises were wet and hot, quiet almost-gulps and panting breath as he worked it over and over in small ellipses. Slower, faster, hard pulls and feather-light kisses.

 

Ben sprang free against her knuckles, scorching and firm. He gasped, her breast falling from his mouth with a puff of air. He was shaking against her again. Rey spread her legs and pulled his hips in. A few drops of liquid smeared against the sweat-and-wet dampness of her underclothes. She looked down.

 

His cock lay against her crease, twitching. He watched her intently, unsure. Slowly, she ran her fingers over the top. He shivered like a man possessed, and snatched her wrist.

 

“Wait. Like this.”

 

He slid his hand up to wrap around hers. His fingers snuck into the spaces between hers, spreading them and curling her palm around the heat below. Slowly, he guided her hand up and down. Ben’s lids dropped, and she felt his Force signature hum even deeper, matching the register of his growls. They went slow, gradually picking up the pace. He removed his hand and she continued, drawing hisses and muffled moans from behind his lips. She took his other hand and hooked it into the damp cloth of her smallclothes.

 

Ben slipped it down slightly past the jut of her hip and rubbed his thumb back and forth across the sparse, rough hairs dotting the valley between her hipbones. Rey gritted her teeth and breathed slowly.

 

“You like that, don’t you?” he whispered in her ear, drawing from her grasp to lean over her. “You want me to do it again?”

 

She nodded, eyes shut against the dizzying feeling. His lips drew to her neck and collarbone, sucking as roughly as he had on her breast.

 

“Wait-” she gasped. “You’ll leave a mark.”

 

“Oh?” He stopped. Rey opened her eyes, saw something dangerous brewing deep in his. “I’ll just have to continue somewhere where they won’t be noticeable.”

 

His hands-Force, they were so big, curved around the underside of her thighs and raised them up so that her bottom came off of the bunk. Ben bent his head down, pinched a wrinkle of fabric between his teeth, and pulled. Rey’s smallclothes slipped down her legs and were thrown away with a toss.

 

Ben’s kiss-swollen mouth brushed over her lips. Rey inhaled sharply, lacing her fingers behind his neck. He sucked her clit into his mouth, like he had with her lip, flicking his tongue back and forth rapidly. His hands dug tight into her flesh, scratching the skin with Rey’s every moan and gasp-soaked twitch.

 

“Force... Force, Ben. Stop!”

 

He pulled away confused. Rey breathed deeply, eyes closed and trembling.

 

“Sorry. Sorry,” she muttered. “Just... just a second. It was good, you were good, I’m just not used to-”

 

Ben stroked her thigh. “It’s fine. Do you need a minute?”

 

She shook her head, eyes still closed. “I’m fine. Keep going.”

Ben returned, gentler this time. He ran his tongue up in a slow, sweet line, top to bottom. Rey sighed, her hands stroking the back of his head. His tongue moved in lazy circles around her, stopping to pepper Rey half-stupid with loud, wet kisses. She was covered in a prickly heat, rising and falling with every move of his mouth.

 

Rey brushed a sweat-bathed strand of hair from his forehead, prompting him to look up. A thin, clear strand clung to his bottom lip. He brought up a large hand and wiped it away, grinning a grin so wicked that it made her clench tightly. But buried underneath was that eternal question of his.

 

“Stop that, Ben. I think you know what I want,” she replied, returning his lecherous smirk. Ben smiled genuinely in spite of himself, causing Rey’s heart to skip a beat. She’d never get used to that.

 

“Maybe I want to hear you say it.”

 

“I want you,” she whispered. Ben moved, crouching over her, locking Rey in with his arms.

 

“You want me? To do what?”

 

“Make love to me, Ben. I want us to make love together.”

 

“Just this once?”

 

Rey lightly smacked her palm against his chest and felt the jump of his heart against her skin. “Just shut up and kiss me, Ben Solo, before I change my mind.” She pulled his head in close, dizzied by the familiar scent of herself sticking to his lips. He pressed his mouth to hers softly. His weight shifted between her hips, spreading them further apart. She was open, exposed.

 

He took himself in hand and pressed against her entrance. A slick stroke of his hand spread their mingled wetness down his length.

 

Ready?

 

His thought crept into her head, waiting, wanting for a reply. Rey took a deep breath. She nodded.

 

It stretched and burned white hot, like any second something was going to rip and split all of her in two right up her spine. Her hand flew to his, clenched it so tight that she could feel the bones begin to bow out of place.

 

“It hurts?” he asked, concerned.

 

“Yeah,” she gasped. “It’ll be okay. Keep going.”

 

He dug into her, slower and slower, until she felt his stomach nudge hers. Ben pulled back out. It wasn’t as bad that time, or the next time in. Gradually the two of them fell into a rhythm of pull and push, folding her pain into smaller and smaller pieces. Rey was feeling, hearing, smelling everything. His musky scent mingled with their breath, the soft slap and give of flesh raking hot lightning flashes beyond the edges of her vision.

 

With trembling hands she reeled Ben closer, drawing kisses from his lip to try and stay the call of her body to plaster every inch of itself with him. The back of his legs were rough with thick, coarse hair that bristled as she moved her own up to lock behind his knees. She swept her head down to the crook of his neck and caught a strip of skin between her teeth. Ben growled with pleasure, and his strokes deepened, quickened with every suck and nip of her mouth. The flash of bruise-red against the snow white of his throat made her moan with joy.

 

Mine.

 

That word, that victory, rang in her mind over and over. Rey bucked her hips, drew him in harder with every thrust. She rolled under him, wanting more, harder, faster. Ben reached for her mind with his. Without a thought she clasped it. Their minds melded together as tightly as their bodies, sensations, heat and friction and the soft wetness of her on him. He obliged her silent plea. Her hipbones ached with the sharp, clapping pain of his repeated blows. Her lips roamed, sucking more of her marks onto his neck, his chest, and his shoulders.

 

Ben tensed, thumbs crushed deeper into the skin on her arm. He trembled, spitting out unformed half words.

 

“Rey-” he gasped. “I- I can’t- too...”

 

A flicker of sadness flitted through her mind. She quickly cleared it away, petting the nape of his neck.

 

“It’s okay. It’s okay. Let it go, come on...”

 

He gave two more quick, shallow pumps. She tightened up, giving a small, breathy grunt. His breathing was loud, rivaled only by hers. Ben looked down at her, worry evident.

 

“You didn’t get to... did you?”

 

She shook her head, cheeks flushed. “Ben it’s okay. I think-” she exhaled. “I can’t say for certain, but I think that was pretty damn good for a first time.”

 

He looked away, shamefaced.

 

“Besides,” she added quickly. “It’s not like we won’t have more chances soon, right?”

 

Rey traced a lazy pattern up his arm and grinned. He folded his arms around her, pressed his nose into the crook of her neck. His breath tickled.

 

“As you wish,” he yawned.

 

She snorted, and they lay there with nothing but skin, and thoughts, and the distant patter of rain.

 

“You called me Ben.” he said suddenly. Rey shifted.

 

“I did. Do you mind it?”

 

He pulled his face from her shoulder to leave a gentle touch of the lips on her temple.

 

“It’s... strange. The Supreme Leader, Snoke, he forbade anyone from saying it. I’m not used to hearing it. The last time was when-” the scene flashed across their minds.

 

“What should I call you? You aren’t Kylo Ren anymore.”

 

“I never said you couldn’t call me Ben. I just said it felt strange.”


	10. Chapter 10

At night, things were always better. At night he dropped his past on the floor to tangle amongst the clothes next to the small bunk they shared. At night he was neither Kylo Ren, nor Ben Solo. He was himself, and he was hers. But with the rising of the sun, the man disappeared and the beast reemerged to keep the maiden at bay.

 

In the morning, he was usually gone before she woke up. The one occasion when she was stirred by him leaving the bed, he stopped and laid back down next to her. He tangled his fingers in her hair and lulled her back into a few minutes of sleep. His voice was low and crooning.

 

“Go back to bed, Rey.” He always said her name with the relish of a man tasting a fine wine. “There’s still time for you to sleep.”

 

His voice and hands were warm, soothing. But in his mind she still felt the aftertaste of shame and fear. She tried to sit up and was stopped immediately by the look in his eyes.

 

“What’s wrong? And don’t say ‘nothing’.”

 

“Just go back to bed.” He stood up and walked away, cloak billowing behind him as he exited the ship. He didn’t return until nearly sunset, his cloak wrapped several times around a bundle of herbs and greens. Ben did not explain his absence. Rey didn’t ask him to.

 

 

  
Every morning she woke up and ate the breakfast he left for her. Usually cold greens with the juices still oozing, and a tacky smell from the cut ends, meat from last night, the fat and grease cooled into a white crust rimming the brown, and a cup of crystal-cool spring water. If she wasn’t hungry, Rey wrapped it up in a cloth and took it with her to the temple.

There was a crack in one of the old dormitories, about as high as her waist and one foot wide. The edges crumbled like stale bread at the slightest touch, the result of years of work by some small herbivore she’d discovered and laid traps for time and time again. The stupid git always evaded them somehow.

 

Most of the rooms were in fairly good condition, barring the curtains and blankets of cobwebs draped over every available surface. Cel Fermecat did no major trading, rarely even daring to tiptoe into the fringes of the lowliest politician’s mind. However, if the planet ever united in some form of economy, Rey thought a spider-based one would do quite well.

 

At the corner of her mind, she felt something tug or trip, like a burglar activating a silent alarm. She looked around, but there was no one there. Her eyes swept the floor. The usual piles of metal debris seemed untouched, as firm and immobile as a cliff-face.

 

‘ Wait,’ she thought. ‘Over by the second ...’

 

Rey crept over, her calloused feet moving softer than a mouse across a bolt of velvet. Over in the corner were the barest traces of dirt. She stepped into the pattern carefully, heel matching up with heel. The shape was similar, but they were much too big.

 

“Ben?” she muttered to herself. A feeling of nakedness and something like betrayal crept over her body. She hadn’t meant for him to come this early...

 

“ Ben?” she called out. “ Is that you?”

 

As soon as the words left her lips, she wanted to take them back. An answering sound clattered and clacked in the hallway, unmistakably humanoid. Rey grabbed a nearby piece of junk, a metal pole near rusted to obsoletion. She gripped it tightly, and crept towards the corridor.

 

Whoever it was came nearer and nearer. Each step was heavy, limping, beating out a steady, uneven tattoo.

 

Clunk-CLUNK

 

Clunk-CLUNK

 

Clunk-CLUNK

 

A harsh, wheezing breath rattled against the stone, a counter-melody to the bassline of steps. Rey breathed deep, gathered her thoughts, and leapt into the hallway, swinging her staff to point at the intruder.

 

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” she demanded.

 

The old man stared directly at her, his grin too old and weak to reach his eyes. His face had not aged gracefully. No smile or frown lines puckered his visage. Instead, it seemed to be sucked inwards, like time had spun the muscle out from under his skin and wasted him away.

 

“My... name... is Voland.” He hobbled over and extended a hand like a withered tree branch. Rey shook it.. “I’ve been... lost down here for some time. It is... good... to see another face.”

 

He pulled his hand from her grasp.

 

“I’m Rey. You said you got lost?” she eyed him carefully. His clothes were much too torn to be acquired recently, stained and ripped all over.

 

“I was walking... then all the sudden I was here... without a soul to talk to,” he was silenced by a loud bout of a hacking cough. “No food... either. Just water,”

 

Rey felt a sharp pain in her heart, a familiar ache of hunger in her stomach. She reached into her belt and pulled out the food she had brought with her. Voland eyed it ravenously, running his red red tongue over his teeth. Rey passed it to him and he devoured it, breathing forgotten in his excitement.

 

“You must have fell through the hole. It’s a miracle that you didn’t kill yourself,”

 

Voland wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

 

“No, that... will come soon enough. The force must have some... task left for me.” he smiled at her, and returned the cloth she’d wrapped the food in. “But I don’t think... I can do it down here,”

 

“I can help you out of here if you want,” Rey offered, uneasily remembering her own days of isolation and captivity.

 

“Thank you.... My child,” he placed a greasy hand on her elbow and gestured down the hall. “Is it this way?”

 

Rey nodded and led him back to the open foyer. It was slow going, with each tiny step of hers taking three of his to match. But eventually they made it down the hall, through the room, and back down the corridor that led to the opening. Voland looked at her, then up at the green leaves waving from the top.

 

“I can use the Force,” she explained. “Give me a moment and I’ll raise you up. Then I’ll follow. Let go of my arm, please,”

 

He obeyed. Rey closed her eyes and concentrated on the space of his body, the weight of it in the Force. He was lighter than she’d imagined. Hollow and frail. Like a jug. Slowly she lifted him through the air, up and up. Then slightly forward, until she felt the soft bump of his feet against the ground.

 

“Are you alright?” she called up, grabbing the vines and roots with her hands. Rey could have easily floated up too, but she relished the small challenge of the climb.

 

When she got to the top, Voland was patting down his body. Rey peered over just as he let out a hoarse cry of triumph. From deep within his jacket, Voland pulled a small, metal disk. It was black and had obviously been maintained with a great level of care, for it shone like new in the dim light.

 

“What is that?” Rey took it from him and turned it over in her grasp.

 

“A gift... from a friend of mine...long ago. He was touched by the Force... as you are. It heals wounds of the soul,”

 

“It’s a Jedi artifact?” Rey took it from him.

 

“He was a Jedi... for a time. He is dead now,”

 

She eyed the piece.

 

“I don’t think I should take this, if it’s a gift from someone you used to know.”

 

“I have no one else... to give it to. I am an old man... child... and I will die soon. If you do not... take it... it will die with me. Please...”

 

“I’ll take it then. Thank you,”

 

“Place it... below them while they slumber... Tie the energy that comes from it... Around them. Into them. When they awaken.... The person will be... changed. Goodbye.... And may it bring the change... I hope it does.”

 

Voland’s figure receded back into the forest. She took a step to follow him, then stopped. The thing in her hand seemed heavier than before, warmer. Before it had been cool, like Voland’s grip, or the stream that flowed through the main chamber. But in her grasp it had quickly warmed. Rey held it up to her eye and began the familiar ritual. No buttons, no markings, no scratches, or pieces. Completely solid. Above all else, it felt neutral. Only the slightest bit of energy radiated from it. Its touch was neutral against her palm, most similar to the Force signature of the wind or a rock. She looked into the dark space he had returned to, then turned back for home.

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

  
Ben breathed softly next to her, arms and legs knotted around her protectively. Ben was like the roots of an old tree when he slept: immobile and incapable of responding to any stimuli.

 

‘ Well, apart from one.’ Rey smirked. She swallowed, trying to drown the butterflies flitting about in her lungs.

 

Slowly, she extracted herself from his grasp and opened the small drawer beneath the bunk. Her hand brushed lightly against the holo’s smooth dome, the round edge digging into the creases of her fingers. It was heavy, like a stone. Rey slipped completely from the security of Ben’s embrace and sat naked and cross-legged on the floor. She reached out with her other hand for the white slip and pulled it over her head.

 

The machine fit in her hand, black and markless. Air flooded her lungs, slowly and surely. All her thoughts soaked into it, like water gone down the drain. Energy fizzed and bubbled under her hands, taking solid form within her mind.

 

Like a gardener, she shaped it, encouraged it to grow tall, to reach for him. It wove into his veins, knitted itself into his muscles and nerves, burning white against the cool blue of his skin in the night. Up it wound under his skin, around heart and lungs and throat, past his jaw, his mouth, his nose.

 

Ben’s eyes shot open.

 

“Rey.... What are you doing?”

 

He sat up, hands shaking. He clawed at his heart; she heard it beat more and more rapidly with every inch that the white strands gained. They made it to his eyes, plunging into quivering, soft flesh. His signature was changing rapidly, his warmth into a frigid cold.

 

“What have you done?” he roared. His irises swirled, pale gold with brown. “ What have you done to me, Rey?”

 

“It was supposed to help you...” she whispered. His hands extended, crackling with Force lightning.

 

A power of the Dark Side. The Emperor was the only one I ever saw use it.

 

Luke’s words echoed.

 

‘ No,’ she thought. ‘ I couldn’t have...The holocron didn’t feel dark, Voland didn’t-’

 

Yet he felt as dark and desolate as a black hole.

 

“Ben,” she said softly, extended a shaking hand. “It’s okay, calm down, I’ll fi-”

 

“ No!” he bellowed. “ GET OUT!”

 

Rey stood up and set her jaw. This was her mistake, she couldn’t just leave him like th-

 

He Force-froze her, then pushed, sliding her towards the door. His face was like that of a madman kept in deepest isolation his whole life. The ramp crashed down onto the damp ground, rain obscuring the protesting squeal of hinges.

 

Rey was flung through the air, landing with a splash into the muddy ground. His torn cloak thudded wetly next to her. The bonds of his Force-freeze melted away. She ran back towards the ramp, furious and frightened and hurt.

 

“Run,” he growled. “Run far away from me and forget that you ever thought that you could love me. The man you thought you could save died many years ago.”

 

“I don’t care what you say!” she exclaimed. “If you leave me here, I’ll hunt you down, even if it takes me the rest of my life. I will find you again.”

 

The ramp started to close, the hinges groaning.

 

“You’ll find me again? Yes, you will. In a place that is east of all stars and west of all moons, in a place where the wind always blows silently. In death, Rey, is where you will find me again.”

 

The door swung shut, oblivious and blind to the beating of her fists. Jets of flame rippled against the grass, burning it away into bare earth that cracked and crumbled.

 

“Ben! Open the door, you kriffing idiot!” She stumbled backwards. Tears flew from her eyes. “ Let! Me! In!”

 

His ship rose slowly into the air like a great black bird, hovering over the death of everything she had built. She could still sense him in there, fear and anger and hurt. No love, no light left. In the time it took her to draw another breath, he disappeared. Rey shouted his name into the empty air.

 

“No...” she whispered. She couldn’t feel her legs, her arms, her face. She felt nothing other than her heart tearing itself into billions upon billions of pieces.

 

Then it returned.

 

“ You,” she hissed. “You did this. Voland. I am going to kill you.”

 

Rey leapt into the forest, arms and legs pumping as fast as they could go. She knocked branches and rocks out of her way, they crashed and banged louder than the death of a thousand systems.

 

Her mind flew from her body and soared over the ground. Anger sizzled white hot from every pore, burning ashen drops into the deep green forest floor. A single thought throbbed like a vein. The entrance was up ahead. Rey jumped down it, ignored the buzzing pain in her rebelling ankles.

 

“ VOLAND!” she bellowed, the crash and hurl of her voice bouncing around the empty caverns.

 

Dust swirled around her, thick and grey and choking. She looked down. The particles were much too large, white-grey, burned with the acrid smell of hair and flesh. She sank to her knees.

 

“Gone,” she mouthed. “Everyone is gone.”

 

The tears dripped from her eyes then, falling in soft plops into the pile of ashes. Her eyes burnt and she hiccupped and sobbed in her loneliness. Rey cried and cried. For hours it seemed to go on and on and on. Every time her eyes dried, another source welled up deep inside her. A memory, a scent, a reminder of what she’d lost.

 

“N-never. Never going to be alone ag-gain,” she sniffed, wiping her angry tears away. Guilt rose up in her stomach, like a pile of rocks. “This is my fault. I have to fix it.”

 

The pile of debris she’d cleared seemed a mockery, broken hopes and dreams stacked up like cracked dishes. Through the dim fog of tears, she could see a long rod. A staff. Instinct plucked at her feet. Slowly she stood up, walked over as if in a dream. Rey pulled it from the rubble, junk clattering around her legs. It was rusted red, but solid, the size and weight of her old one. Comfortingly familiar.

 

“Shoes,” she said quietly to herself. “I’m going to need shoes once I get off-planet. But the extra set of boots is on Be- his ship.”

 

The sound of his name was a dagger to her heart. No. Too soon. It was too soon to speak his name. She looked on the floor. There were several steel plates lying there, each about five inches by a foot, thin, but strong. She reached out and tried to bend one. It was completely unmalleable.

 

“It’ll do.” She sniffed slightly, blinking back the last of her tears. “Get something sharp. Some cord...” Rey smiled. “Back to a scavenger already... You can take the Wookie out of the forest, but you can’t take the forest out of the Wookie.”

 

She wrapped the edge of Ben’s cloak around her hand and rummaged around in the pile for a bit, searching. In the very bottom was a sharp sliver. Rey picked it up gingerly. She scraped the sharp point against the steel plate. It left a white scratch; she ran her finger over it, relieved that she could feel it.

 

Continuing her search, she found a blunt piece of tile. Makeshift awl and hammer in hand, she set about her work. One hole slightly to the left of the top-center, then two in a straight line further down, forming a triangle. She completed this process five more times, slowly, methodically. From the hall, she gathered two long roots and stripped them down into thin cords.

 

Her fingers danced, weaving and braiding them together into threads slightly smaller than the holes. Rey tied the ends in sturdy knots, threading the loose section into each of the holes. She wiggled it onto her foot and took a few practice steps. The sandal made a sharp slapping noise, but it stayed put.

 

“Good.” She nodded and put the other one on. Ben’s tattered cloak around her shoulders, staff in hand, she set off.

 


	12. Chapter 12

It was twelve days of hard walking until she came to a city. The buildings were made of mud brick or rough-hewn wooden planks. The streets were unpaved, hard earth beaten into submission by a multitude of feet. A large stone announced its humble title: Porcul. The people wore shades of brown and red, slender, but not underfed. Dirty-faced children ducked around skirts and baskets and were shooed away from scraps of technology by ruddy-skinned adults. There were ships in the square, small and clunky, almost boxlike.

 

Next to them stood a hard faced man, beefy arms crossed in a familiar pose. She groaned inwardly and walked up to him.

 

“I require a ship. My husband is gone, and I need to find him.”

 

His eyes swept over her ragged form: the torn cloak, too-large pants, and frayed tunic. Most importantly, he looked at the lack of a credit pouch on her belt.

 

“I don’t take credit,” he grunted. “Especially from beggarly looking women who don’t have enough respect to say please.”

 

“I promise you that you’ll get your money if you let me use a ship.”

 

The captain laughed. “You think that pretty face of yours is enough to change my policy? I worked hard to get where I’m at. And nothing in all those years has taught me that giving people chances is worth it.”

 

“My word is different than most. I’m a Jedi, and we are sworn to uphold our oaths.”

 

“Now I know you’re a liar. Those glowstick-swingers died out over fifty years ago. The answer is no, now go before I set my boys on you.”

 

“You leave me no choice.” Rey turned to his guards, who were watching with barely enforced restraint. “Turn around, and forget that you ever saw me.”

 

She felt the command break through their minds, their mental barriers weak after years of automatically obeying any and all orders. The two muscled men turned on their heels and watched the blank side of a building with keen interest.

 

“As for you.” Rey returned her gaze to the captain, whose face rapidly switched through cycles of anger, fear, and disbelief. “I’ll be taking your ship. I don’t like stealing, but sometimes the ends have to justify the means. Give me the keys, and tell me of any system defects the ship has.”

 

His barrier was better constructed, rigid and solid, like his body. Looking at him, he seemed to be one solid piece; if you cut him open, he’d be nothing but tanned flesh the whole way through, no heart, or stomach, or lungs. Rey pushed harder and harder, until eventually it gave. The captain rummaged through his pockets, eventually coming up with a small key stained with greasy fingerprints. Rey took it.

 

“The thing wastes fuel like nobody’s business. And the hyperdrive doesn’t work so good. It usually starts up fine, but you won’t get more than two systems in before it quits on you.”

 

Rey pondered this a moment, then set off towards the ship. It had seen hard times. The hull was dinged in more than a few places, scraped and scratched all over.

 

“Tell me why the hull is like that.”

 

“Ran into an asteroid field.”

 

“It didn’t damage the structural integrity? Answer truthfully.”

 

“Not that I know of.”

 

Rey was as satisfied as she was going to get, so she pressed the button on her key. The ramp came down slowly, grunting and creaking like an old codger’s joints. Inside, everything was rather plain. It was box shaped and divided into four chambers. Three of those were squares: one larger, and two of a smaller, equal size, in addition to the piloting area. It was bare of anything apart from the most basic of necessities. The two smaller rooms were a kitchen and lavatory. The latter was so cramped that she could sit on the toilet and touch the ‘fresher knob at the same time. There was no sink, so after completing your business, it became necessary to move to the kitchen.

 

The kitchen area was just as small and tight, with a few drawers and a food storage unit approximately two feet cubed. In these were bland, non perishable rations. Each one was a calobar, where one square was nutrient dense enough to last a week. Some quick math, and she found that had enough for six months. A one burner stove was fixed into the countertop, along with a small sink.

 

The largest of the square rooms was a bedchamber. The bed was much larger than the small bunk she’d shared with Ben, and was much softer to the touch as well. A small shelf was bolted into the wall, bearing a wooden puzzle box, a folded blanket, and a small case of tools.

 

“So this is home now,” she pondered. “At least for the time being.”

 

The thought didn’t make her uneasy. It instead conjured up something that Luke had mentioned about Han Solo.

 

“People like him aren’t meant to stay in one place, Rey. To Han, home was the people he cared about, and as long as those were alright, he was home. The place was just another adventure.”

 

She smiled sadly, set the staff down on her bed, and walked back to the front. The fuel gauge read as full, and no warning lights blinked when she turned the key. She looked at it uneasily. If it did burn too much fuel, she’d have to constantly stop and refill, probably within the next week.

 

“I don’t have the money for that,” Rey muttered, her thoughts turning to the man outside.

 

“No!” she told herself firmly. “These people are poor enough as it is, and I’m already stealing from them. If I have to take gas elsewhere, so be it. But not from here.”

 

Rey flipped the ignition switch and listened to the unsteady, throbbing pump of the engines. It eventually caught up to itself, purring as easy as her bike back home. She took the controls in hand and gently guided it off the planet’s surface. Once she was clear of the atmosphere, the navicom buzzed, asked her to insert a destination.

 

The list of planet names was largely alien to her. She recognized a few names, like Jakku, Alderaan (how old was this ship?), Dathomir, and Coruscant. But the rest seemed foreign to some degree, ranging from completely new to vaguely familiar to her ears.

 

“Coruscant would probably be best,” she muttered. “At the very least, I can go and find an archive, try and see where the Resistance might be if he isn’t there... No, Leia might know, and I have to at least tell her and Master Luke that I’m alive.”

 

Rey plugged in her destination and engaged the hyperdrive, stretching the safety harness across her stomach with a pang.

 

“Safety first,” she whispered to herself, and smiled.

 


	13. Chapter 13

Coruscant had been a complete bust. No one there knew a thing about the Resistance or anything about where their base was rumored to be hidden. Well, she had learned that their base was completely hidden by sensors. The majority of her time had been spent in the archives, living off of calobars and tea. For some reason, the caf made her head hurt.

 

At the end of three months of no companionship, increasingly hostile archive workers, and hardly any money, she gave up and left. Despair chained her heart to her feet, timing its sad little bumps with her clanging sandals.

 

She lay stretched out in the middle of the bed, oceans of fabric on either side, an island, desperate to sleep in the midst of a storm. Her back prickled with darts of ice, her heart throbbed unkempt without the steady in-1-2-3 out-1-2-3 breathing. Between flashes of starlight, she couldn’t see the double-blue sheen of his hair. A lump balled up in her throat, and she closed her eyes.

 

‘ Please,’ she prayed, soothing the unrest in her stomach with sweaty-palmed strokes. ‘ Let tomorrow be the day I find the Resistance base. Let him be there when I open my eyes.’

 

She held on tightly to that uncertain state, where as long as she didn’t open her eyes, he was both there and not there. His Force signature clung tightly to everything: his cloak, her skin, her hair. It became faint and twisted by memory, mingling with hers to...

 

Rey shot up and tried desperately to stow her racing thoughts away. Calm, clarity, that was important. She laced her fingers and remembered. About four months ago, that’s how long it had been. No bleeding, that was nothing unusual. Sometimes she had gone a half-year without even a drop. She reached inward, gently, with fronds instead of the usual fingers. There, right there, in the gentle cradle of her hips. It was small, so very very small that she didn’t dare touch it directly. A seed.

 

A rush of love and sadness swallowed her up like a great wave. Determination welled up when she had thought it bare only a few minutes before.

 

‘Hello,’ she thought softly. ‘I don’t know you yet. But I promise that I’ll never leave you. Never.’

 

Rey sat up, all traces of fatigue rushed out by this new realization.

 

“I can sleep when I’m dead,” she muttered. “I need to find the Resistance, and Ben.”

 

She half-ran out of her chambers and sat down heavily in the pilot’s chair. With a flick of her wrist, she pulled up the map and scanned it.

 

“Coruscant was a dead end,” she muttered. “They wouldn’t set up on Jakku, or Tatooine, or Kashyyk... Need a place that has some First Order presence, but not much. People who would trust General Organa. A large population with lots of information flowing in and out.”

 

Her finger trailed across the map. Occasionally she started to tap at a planet or system, then frowned and moved away. Not Naboo, that would be too obvious. Her head hurt.

 

“Come on, think.” She pressed her palms to her aching forehead. “Where else?”

 

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. ‘ Guide me ,’ she pleaded. ‘ Give me the answer. ’

  
The Force drained from her fingertips, swimming about the map like tiny fish. It swirled and swarmed, circling closer and closer towards one system, one planet. It drew her fingers, brought up

the name.

 

“Corellia.”

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

Rey docked her ship in the spaceport, and slipped the key over her head. It nestled securely between her breasts. Tucked into her belt were some of her tools. As she went down the dock she cast one last withering glance at her ship. Damn thing took a month and a half to get there. She exited with eyes and mouth wide open.

 

All around her, buildings stretched so high they seemed to carve chunks out of the stars. Ships and people scuttled like insects, dressed in gaudy, butterfly-bright clothing, cloaks of red and gold embroidery, headdresses and tattoos. Pale faced politicians turned their noses up at her.

 

‘I’m attracting too much attention here,’ she thought desperately. ‘I need to get somewhere else.”

 

The streets were wound tight, like a ball of yarn. Smaller alleys branched out from the main roads, snaking between the buildings. She ducked into the nearest one, free from the grip of the crowd. This less-trodden path was still swept clean, but not fully illuminated like the larger passages. Instead she relied on the flashes of light from ships overhead to make her way through. Other beings hung themselves in the shadows, up for trade: credits, spice, and sex.

 

Rey scanned the sides of the buildings, looking for the familiar orange flash of the Resistance’s tag. Red, green, and blue gang signs and warnings blared from corners, reflected in the eyes of the people watching her, but nothing orange.

 

“Fre-ell!” whined a woman to her left. “Hosdo’s gonna kill us.”

 

Rey turned to look at the source of the noise. Two busty Twi’lek dancers stood next to an immobile, powered-down droid.

 

“We’re his best girls, and he sends us out with this bucket of bolts,” complained the other, punctuating her displeasure with a kick to the droid’s leg.

 

“How much did it cost last time to fix it?”

 

“18,000 credits. Outta our salary. Remember how we had to take that extra appointment with those FO pigs to scrape it up?”

 

“Yeah. Never again. My lekku were bruised for weeks.”

 

Rey smiled to herself and walked over.

 

“Excuse me. I’m a mechanic of sorts. What’s wrong with your droid?”

 

The taller of the two looked at her incredulously for a moment, then traded a look with her shorter, blue-skinned companion. She gestured for Rey to come closer.

 

“Our guard droid shut down as we were walking. Hosdo--he manages us--is going to blow a gasket when he hears that it happened again.”

 

“He makes you pay for it?”

 

“Well, we insisted that we have one in the first place.”

 

“I can take a look at it if you want,” Rey offered.

 

“What’s your price?” the blue one asked suspiciously.

 

“Three hundred credits and some information,” she responded. “If I can’t get him working again, I’ll drop the credits.”

 

The Twi’leks cast each other a quick glance.

 

“Fine,” said the green, taller one. “What is it you want to know?”

 

“I’m looking for my older brother,” she lied, flavoring her words with the Force, making them easier to swallow. “He joined the Resistance two years ago, and we haven’t heard anything since. I want to find one of their operatives, see if I can get them to relay a message to him.”

 

“Fix the droid first. If you can do that properly, I’ll tell you what I’ve heard.”

 

“Deal. I’ll need the access panel entry code.”

 

“5-3-10-5-1-6-5-3.”

 

Rey punched in the numbers. The lock clicked open, but the panel remained in place. She pulled the knife from her belt and ran it around the edge. It popped to the ground with a satisfying clank. Inside she could see the tangle of wires, the motivator, and weapon energy stores.

 

“Well.” She squinted and pulled off a wire. “One problem right off the cuff. The receptors are filthy. And I think- yes, the motivator’s loose. This all should have been picked up on- When did you say it went in for maintenance?”

 

“Two months ago.”

 

“And they charged you 18,000 for it?” Rey grunted and screwed the motivator back into the correct setting.

 

“Yes, they said they replaced all of the original parts.”

 

“They did. The shop took the original, and gave you the motivator off of a different droid. I think it might have been a GONK. Then they charged you a fake fee and didn’t say what the real problem was.”

 

“So we could easily fix the problem ourselves?”

 

Rey nodded.

 

“Those-”

 

“Do either of you have a handkerchief?”

 

The blue Twi’lek fished around in her bag. She handed a slip of silvery material over to Rey, who started wiping grit off of the contact points. Eventually satisfied, she leaned back on her heels and gave the dancer her handkerchief back.

 

“That ought to keep it in the black for a while.” The green one knelt down and helped Rey to pull herself up.

 

“Should you really be doing that in your condition? Too much squatting will give the baby a pointy head. It happened to my fourth cousin Ueloo, you know.”

 

“I think the baby will be just fine. My feet, on the other hand...”

 

They cast another quick look between them. A conversation without words, until the blue reached out and clasped the other’s hand.

 

“We know a place where you can find what you’re looking for,” she said. “A place to rest your feet. Go to the cantina called ‘The Death Stir’ and tell them you have a message for Rose Tico from Nallok’Var. She’ll help you if she isn’t tied up in those boys.“

 

“Thank you, you’re both so kind.” Rey smiled. The two women waved her off dismissively, in sync.

 

“Here is your money,” said the blue. “Normally Nal’Var would pay you, but yesterday she bought-”

 

“Oh hush! You don’t want to talk about that. Your tongue is better suited for other junk.”

 

A few credits were shoved into her hand. She counted them quickly. 110, 250, 300.

 

“Thank you.” Rey set off again.

 

 

No one spoke in the cantina, quiet as empty space. The owner wiped glasses from behind the bar, but they made no clink against it.

 

“Yes?” He was of a species alien to her, with three arms and flat, brick-red skin stretched so tight and thin she could see every slow beat of his purple heart.

 

“I’ve been hired to convey a message to Rose Tico from Nallok’var. Is she here?”

 

The barkeep looked her steadily up and down: the makeshift shoes, round belly, and torn-up clothing.

 

“Stay here,” he said gruffly. “And don’t touch anything.”

 

He disappeared around to the back. Eyes, which beforehand had been largely focused on their drinks, now turned to her, watching, studying her every move. Mostly human, and a few Rodians who buzzed suspiciously from a corner table. She turned back to the bar and scanned the menu. Nothing but alcohol and water.

 

He lumbered back.

 

“She’ll see you. Table 23, the ponytail.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

The young woman seated at table 23 was a bit short, with a round face, and dark eyes and hair. Rey slid into the seat across from her.

 

“You’re Rose Tico?”

 

“Yes, you have a message for me?” she smiled brightly, face dimpled.

 

“Not exactly. I need your help,” Rey whispered. “Have you met the General?”

 

No emotion passed over Rose’s face. She took a small sip before answering. “I’ve met a lot of Generals. I do commissioned artwork for a living, so you’ll need to be more specific.”

 

“If you’d seen her, you’d know it. Short? Troublesome family?”

 

“I think I have painted her before, with one of her lieutenants. I’m meeting him tomorrow for breakfast.”

 

“Really? Breakfast seems awfully intimate for a job.” Rey joked.

 

“Don’t get any ideas.” Mare pointed her spoon at Rey. “He’s married, and his husband is extremely sweet, if a bit nervous. I have a picture of them somewhere that I drew when we first met.....”

 

She fished around in her sack for a moment, then gave Rey a small information port.

 

“Press the button on the side. I hope you like it, I pride myself on being extremely lifelike,” Jada announced with no small amount of pride.

 

She followed the young woman’s instructions, and up popped a near-photographic replica of Finn and Poe with their arms around each other's’ waists and a little Togruta girl baring her fangs in a wide smile.

 

“Have you met them before?”

 

“Yes... well, two of them. They’re good friends of mine from when I was studying with the General’s brother. But the young girl... I don’t recognize her.”

 

Poe and Finn were married... well, that didn’t alarm her, she was just surprised that it happened so soon. Had they adopted a daughter? It hadn’t been that long, had it? One month in prison, four on the planet, three on Corellia, and a month and a half to get here...

 

“They were detained for a while by the First Order.” Jada lowered her voice. “She was there too. Apparently the FO couldn’t decide what to do with her, so they stuck her in prison.”

 

“What did she do?”

  
“Apparently their daughter used to be a mechanic’s apprentice. A First Order ship docked for emergency repairs, and she rigged it to blow sky-high once the hyperdrive was engaged or something. The details are sketchy. They officially adopted her once they escaped.”

 

Rey smiled sadly.

 

“I need to find them. Can you help me?”

 

Rose looked at her quizzically, head cocked. Her lips pursed for a moment, then she dug out a stylus from her pocket. She scribbled something on a napkin, and shoved it towards Rey.

 

“Their address. Ring the bell long and loud. They sleep like dead Hutts”

 

“They probably do, with that little girl to run them ragged. Then again, P-

 

“Oh, she isn’t with them right now. She’s training with the General’s brother.”

 

“What?” Her thoughts raced. So Luke had gotten out alive too, and he was training people.

 

“You look kind of pale. Have you been eating?”

 

“Yes, I ate today. About L-”

 

“I really think that you should just be quiet and eat with me.” She stared pointedly at Rey. “Okay? Do you want something to drink? I could get a pitcher of Lum-”

 

“No, I can’t.” She made a small gesture to her stomach. “And I don’t really like to drink, regardless.”

 

“You like to keep your wits about you, huh? Smart, especially in a place like this...” Rose doodled on her hand. “And in your condition.”

 

“Yes, I know.”

 

“The barkeep should have been here- Oh! There he is!” She tossed the bartender a dimpled grin threaded with cyanide. “Dorlook, semn hetap rhziod yu?”

 

He shook his head. “Keplam narr, Tico. Uqifda.”

 

He set the wrap down between the two of them, and walked away. Mare watched his back disappear and scowled. She tore the wrap perfectly in half. She handed a section to Rey, face strained.

 

“I thought there wasn’t any food on the menu?” Rey asked, taking a deep sniff.

 

“I saved his life a few years ago. So he’s always happy to give a little something extra to his favorite customer.”

 

Underneath the table, Rey felt a tap on her left knee, sharp and metallic. She blanched. Rose had a blaster drawn and was tapping her leg with it. Quietly and composed, she looked up to meet the other woman’s eyes.

 

Innocently, Rose began to stretch her neck and head, nodding a few times towards the Rhodians in the corner booth.

 

“Your hairstyle is so cute!” She dredged her voice in saccharine insincerity. “Can I see how you twisted that?”

 

Rey moved her head to the side and turned it. Immediately red blaster bolts shrieked across the bar into the cluster of aliens.

 

“Get down!” Rose commanded, pointing her blaster at the lonely living Rhodian. Three corpses lay smoking on the table. “And leave your weapons alone.”

 

She gave a shrug to Rey.

 

“They’ve been tailing me all week. I’m surprised that Nallok’Var even sent you here. Thanks to that idiot I had to move a bit-HEY HEY HEY, don’t think I can’t see you reaching for that thermal detonator, stupid. I am so sorry, normally I’m a much better hostess.”

 

“No, that’s fine,” Rey said, eyes wide. “Need help?”

 

“Yeah. Go to that address and get the Flyboy. I need his upper body strength. The Rhodians look tiny, but I swear to stars they all eat bricks. Good luck with your life, Rey. Oh, and you can take the wrap with you. DAMNIT I SAID DON’T MOVE!”

 

Rey snatched the scrap of paper and the wrap from the table and left the cantina. The bartender stood at the front, washing some dishes off.

 

“I’m sorry you had to see that, Ma’am,” he called. “Tico might look sweet, but-”

 

“No, it’s fine. I rather like her.” Rey smiled, and left.

 

The wrap was delicious.

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

Poe and Finn’s building was neat, tucked away in a stodgily average neighborhood mainly occupied by doctors and merchants. It was about ten stories, with windows made of one-way transparisteel. There was no graffiti on the front, and no guardsman.

 

Rey eyed the turbolift suspiciously. It was relatively large, but she hated the things. She shuddered, thinking of the similar box-shape and doors that her cell had. The address on the scrap of paper listed an apartment on the fifth floor. Her ankles were sobbing just at the thought of such a long journey. She groaned and rubbed her stomach.

 

“Come on baby,” she sighed. “Let’s go.”

 

After the first flight of steps, her knees and ankles were groaning and clicking. She clutched the railing, teeth gritted. Up and up she went, cartilage jumping with every single footfall. She counted the steps.

 

On the third floor, she let out a hearty sigh and checked the now-sweaty piece of paper.

 

“Third floor...apartment number C6”

 

She looked at the door nearest to her. It was a dark cranberry red, with gold letters reading C12. Rey started down the hallway. C12, C11... C7... C6. Wooden door, with music playing lightly from behind. The melody was familiar, a brassy tune that Poe used to play while exercising. She gave two sharp staccato knocks and three long ones, the pattern they did when it was time to go to the hill and eat smuggled desserts. The music stopped. From behind the doors was a rush of whispers. Rey knocked again.

 

“Finn? Poe?” she whispered. “It’s me, Rey.”

 

The whispers stopped. She heard a distinctly metallic sound, and then the door opened a hair’s breadth. Finn’s dark eye glinted at her from inside, before widening. The door slammed against the interior wall, and she was swept up into a dizzying, twirling hug. He squeezed her tight and laughed and laughed and laughed.

 

“We thought you were dead! ” he whooped.

 

“I got off the shuttle in time!” She grinned wildly. “Put me down so I can hug Poe, too!”

 

“Why didn’t you tell anyone? Where were you this whole time? And what the hell is going on with your stomach? You’re pregnant?” Finn set her down gently

 

“Give the girl a chance to breathe, buddy.” Poe squished her into his chest and gave her a loud kiss on the forehead. “So, you got to enjoy my fireworks at the FO command center?”

 

“From a distance, they were lovely. Up close-” She rolled her eyes. “Not something I had a fun time running away from.”

 

“Come inside and sit down. You look like you ate a village of Hutts,” Poe cracked, patting her swelling stomach. His eyes were wet at the corners.

 

“Thanks Poe,” Rey said dryly.

 

The inside was well decorated, but minimal, with some bright rugs, a holovision, and posters. A small room off to the left was presumably their bedroom, door opened a crack to allow a slight breeze. On the largest wall was a picture, the two of them holding a smiling little togruta girl. Finn pushed a squishy-looking armchair in front of the couch and gestured to it. She sunk down, relishing the relief from pressure on her lower back and feet.

 

“Did. They. Hurt. You?” Finn asked, pausing for emphasis. “We all know exactly what happened the last time they got their hands on a Resistance member, and what happened the last time they caught you.”

 

“No.” She shook her head slowly. “I wasn’t tortured. I was supposed to be, but it didn’t happen.”

 

“What do you mean by that, Rey?” Poe’s tone was oddly serious. His left hand clenched Finn’s right tightly.

 

“I mean my slated torturer refused to comply. He was supposed to start the day I got there, but he didn’t, and hid it from Snoke.”

 

“He reports directly to Snoke, huh?” Poe muttered. “I guess we know who your savior was, then.”

 

“He helped me escape as the ship was self-destructing, and he killed General Hux and left his former master to die in order to do it. We landed on a planet called Cel Fermecat, and lived there for three and a half months, until something went terribly wrong.” She swallowed and glanced at Finn. He was unreadable.

 

“I was given something, a holocron, by an old man living in some temple ruins I found nearby.” Her voice shook with unshed tears. “He said it could heal people,”

 

“Listen, I can guess where this goes.” Poe licked his lips. “You couldn’t detect any, I don’t know, Dark Side energy coming off of him?”

 

She shook her head. “He felt completely innocuous. Neutral, like he wasn’t even Force sensitive. That’s what he told me.”

 

Finn screamed into his hands. “Rey. Did you even listen to Luke’s lectures? I swear to stars there must have been thirty dedicated to NOT MESSING WITH THINGS YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND.”

 

“That was because I blocked up the toilet and tried to fix it myself,” Poe muttered.

Finn looked at him, eyes wide.

 

“THE LESSON APPLIES, POE.”

 

“He didn’t hurt you while he was like that, did he? I mean...” Poe gave a little shrug towards her stomach.

 

Rey scowled. “No, he didn’t. All of that was consensual, thank you very much. It may be hard for you to understand, but I got to truly know the person behind the mask in those few months. He hurt us all, and I’m not denying that. But he was genuinely remorseful and taking steps towards being whole again until I ruined it.”

 

“Rey.” Finn took her hands in his. “I’m not going to lie to you. I am very unhappy about this. I find it hard to understand why you fell in love with that guy, and I really wish you hadn’t.” Finn paused and looked at Poe. “But I’ll do my best to help you. You need a place to stay? Credits?”

 

“Rey, I’ll be honest with you too. I knew him as a kid.” Poe’s eyes had a faraway look in them. “Not like, best friends or anything, but our parents ran in the same circle. Back then, he... he wasn’t ‘sweet’ exactly, at least not to me. But I can remember how he was before the fall. So if you saw that in him despite everything he’s done, then maybe there’s still a chance. Now, you’re sure that it was the artifact?”

 

Rey nodded. “Yes. I brought it with me. I want Luke to take a look at it. You two have a daughter staying with him?”

 

Poe grinned. “We made good friends with her at the FO prison. She was Force sensitive and used that to screw up the First Order’s ships whenever they landed for maintenance. Smart little runt. Her name’s Losa. Losa Dameron.”

 

“After that, we got married.” Finn smiled. “Leia recommended we let her go with Luke for training, and she liked the idea. We comm with her every day, first thing in the morning.”

 

“So you know where Luke is?”

 

“Not exactly. He’s being very cautious this this time around. Leia’s the only one who knows where it’s located. So you’ll have to go to her.”

 

Rey sighed. “I spent three months looking for any hints of where it might be and couldn’t find it. Please tell me you have the coordinates.”

 

“We do. But we can’t come with you,” Finn said gently. “Our contact is supposed to meet us tomorrow morning with some information.”

 

“Actually, she needs you now. That’s how I got your address. She had a run-in with some Rhodians, and she said she needs Poe’s upper body strength.”

 

“Kriff, did it happen at the Death Stir?” Poe groaned, running a hand through his hair.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Damn it, Tico!” Poe swore and stood up. ”I have to go. I’ll see you two later.”

 

He ran out the door. Finn watched him go and then turned back to Rey.

 

“Can I have that napkin? Thank you. These are the coordinates. Go there as soon as you can, and see Leia. But first.” Finn patted the couch next to him. “Come here and tell me everything from the beginning. You look like hell, Rey.”

 

The tears fell from her eyes, choking up her throat. Finn put his arms around her and just let her cry.

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

A week later, Rey and her ship were hovering anxiously over the planet where the base was hidden.

 

“Identify yourself, pilot. This is a restricted airspace.” The voice crackled over her comm.

 

“My name is Rey, padawan of Luke Skywalker. I’m here to see General Leia Organa. Hold your fire, I’m submitting the passcode now.” She entered it. “Does this serve as good enough confirmation?”

 

Silence from the other end. Rey laid a hand on the swell of her stomach. The baby responded with a fluttering kick. There was a buzz of static as the comm kicked back on.

 

“The individual you claim to be has been presumed dead for almost a year. Can you give definitive proof of your identity?”

 

She groaned. “Not in terms of notarized paperwork, no. But a few days ago I rendezvoused with three of your operatives. Poe Dameron, Finn, formerly known as Stormtrooper FN-2187, and the agent codenamed Jada Mare. This should have been relayed to you.”

 

“I’ll request confirmation on that. I don’t have the clearance to look at those reports myself, but if you are who you say you are, we should have no problem. Please remain in your current position, in full view of our sensors.”

 

Rey rubbed the heels of her hands against her temples. Much to her delight, they’d resumed their daily throbbing.

 

“Fine. Just please hurry. I need to see her as soon as possible, it’s urgent.”

 

The comm went offline. About ten minutes later, she returned from the lavatory and sat back down in her threadbare pilot’s seat.

 

“Your identity has been confirmed. Please land your spacecraft at the coordinates on your screen and come out with no weapons on your person. The General and several guards are en route to visually confirm your identity.”

 

The landing was easy as sin, sliding through the clear curtain of water droplets to drop with a splash into thick black mud. Rey wrapped herself in the cloak firmly, adjusting it so that the part with less holes shielded her stomach from the rain.

 

It came down in sheets, plinking and pattering against the metal platform. Rey stood at the top, waiting for the vague, distant blob to get closer. One of the figures broke off and ran ahead, focusing into the image of a short woman with grey hair.

 

“ REY!” Leia yelled, clambering up the slick ramp. “Where have you been ? It’s been almost a-”

 

“A year, I know. I’m sorry.” She held out her hand and helped the general up. “I’ve missed you so much.”

 

“After the attack, we lost all contact with you. Does-”

 

“No.” She shook her head “I came here first.”

 

“What in all the stars happened to you?” Leia’s eyes went wide and her hands slipped down to touch Rey’s rounded stomach. A flash of insight passed over her face.

 

“You’re pregnant.”

 

Rey said nothing, and turned her head away. A cool hand pressed against her cheek, tucking a loose strand behind her ear.

 

She gently patted Rey’s belly with her other hand. Her eyes slowly closed, and a look passed over her face, reminiscent of someone trying to remember the contents of a dream from long, long ago.

 

“You’re so far along. Finn and Poe told me about you and Ben being involved, but we can discuss that later. First we’re going to get you some hot food and decent medical care.” Leia took off her jacket and handed it to Rey.

 

“No, I don’t need your-”

 

“Rey.” Leia fixed her with a steely gaze. “Don’t argue with me, I’ve never lost. Now put that on and take my hand; it’s slippery, and we don’t want you falling.”

 

The two women picked their way down carefully, arm in arm. It was difficult for Rey to see clearly through all the rain. It fell on her face, slipped down her cheeks. She brushed it away with the back of her hand and kept going.

 

“Don’t cry, Rey. Everything is going to be okay.”

 

“I’m not,” she replied. It was the truth.

 

“Careful,” Leia cautioned. “Eat too fast at this stage and you’ll be seeing it again real soon.”

 

“Did you send Luke the message?”

 

“I did. Don’t talk with your mouth full. You’ll choke.”

 

Rey swallowed and gasped. Her first real meal since Corellia, and Leia had pulled out all the stops. She used her own money to purchase some supplies from the locals, and in no time at all had one of the most gifted cooks on base whip up a hearty, calorie and nutrient dense meal: nerf stew lightly seasoned with pepper lemons and ross-seed, and a dried blumfruit pie.

 

“So,” Leia tented her fingers and sighed deeply. “Ben is still out there, and you haven’t seen him after the incident, which was how long ago?”

 

“Six months.” Rey grabbed a slice of pie and dunked it into the stew, spooning up the sodden chunks of crust that came off.

 

“And you really think that he can be found?” Leia said gently. “When Luke disappeared, he left us a map . And it still took almost ten years, with two armies searching for the pieces.”

 

Rey set down her spoon. “Regardless of whether or not finding him is possible, I won’t rest until I do.”

 

“That’s part of the problem, Rey. Look at you, you’ve worn yourself ragged without a single thought. You might be able to use the Force, but that doesn’t mean you’re superhuman. The physician says you haven’t been sleeping enough, or eating enough, and that’s put both you and your child’s lives at risk. I want you to stay here. At least until the baby is born.”

 

“But every moment I stay is a moment he’s out there somewhere, out of his mind. Who knows what he could be doing to himself?

 

“Rey, you have a bigger responsibility at the moment. You’ve never had to be in charge of anyone but yourself, and now you need to think carefully. What would be best? You don’t need to answer right away, but I want you to consider it.”

 

The general stood up and began walking out of the room.

 

“General Organa?” Rey called.

 

“Yes?”

 

“On Jakku... it’s traditional that when two people spend their lives together, they call the other’s parents their own.” Her face flushed. “I was wondering, especially since this is your grandson...”

 

“You can call me Mom.” Leia smiled softly.

 

Rey beamed.


	17. Chapter 17

Nighttime seemed harder than usual. Her son was much larger now, practically a giant.

 

“He’s huge for just six or so months, and you’re carrying him low,” Leia’d remarked. “I’m surprised that you managed to do all that walking by yourself. Weren’t you vomiting every other step like I was?”

 

She shook her head. “I just had to use the head a lot, and I got headaches.”

 

“You’re very lucky, then.” Leia sighed, and the topic was left alone.

 

 

One early morning, Rey was awoken by a tight squeezing in her abdomen. She laid there in silence, caressing her stomach and waiting. Twenty minutes later, it came again, more intense than the last.

 

Twelve hours later, she was gripping Leia’s hand and grunting, moaning and crying.

 

“I can’t do it,” she whimpered. “I can’t. It hurts.”

 

“You have to,” said the doctor, matter of fact. “You have to push, Rey, so that you can meet your baby.”

 

“You’re hurting me,” she hissed. To herself, to the baby, to Ben. “I can’t do this alone.”

 

“You’re not alone, Rey.” Leia smoothed her hair. “Come on. We can see his head. It’s just a bit further. You’ve done harder things than this.”

 

Rey threw her head back, screaming with the pain and grief. Alone. No matter how many people were there, she was still alone.

 

  
He was small. So very small. That was the most amazing thing to Rey, apart from the fact that the tiny thing wasn’t in her anymore. It was in her arms. He was small and nameless, with a scrunched-up red face, a big nose and wet, dark, hair.

 

“Rey, it’s okay, he won’t break,” Leia said softly. “You can shift your position if you need to.”

 

“But his head is too big. If I move wrong it looks like it’ll fall right off his little neck.”

 

“Babies are stronger than they look. And if that one’s a quarter as stubborn as his family, you could probably drop him down the steps without any side effects.” Leia gave Rey a knowing glance. “Han did that to Ben once, you know. Except it was a ladder. Thank the stars Chewbacca caught him.”

 

She clutched the baby tighter, who let out a red-faced grunt in protest.

 

“Besides, at this point surviving horrific injuries is a family tradition. Rey? Rey, honey, I’m joking. Your eyes are as big as a gungan’s ears.” Leia patted her arm with a worried expression.

 

Rey looked down at the bundle in her arms. He was bright red, (so small!) with an unruly crop of black hair that was already drying into here-and-there curls. Leia had sent See-Threepio to her chambers for a picture of Ben taken at birth and had spent an hour painstakingly pointing out every similarity or difference to Rey. The baby himself started screaming whenever See-Threepio came near, and eventually the droid was banished from the room.

 

“I’ll need to leave soon,” Rey whispered, stroking his cheek with a finger. “I’ve left off my search for far too long.”

 

“Rey, your body just underwent a tremendous amount of stress. You can’t just get up and start hiking around on force-forsaken planets. You’re wearing a diaper.”

 

“Give me two weeks. I’ll be back on my feet.” She gritted her teeth, tears in her eyes. “He won’t latch on properly.”

 

“It's going to be okay. You'll learn."

 

 

 


	18. Chapter 18

Rey kept her promise. At the end of her second week, she packed up her things, some of which were generously gifted by Leia, and walked with her son onto her tiny ship.

 

“Shhhhhhh, Prestor,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his wrinkled forehead. He rarely cried, but always stared at her intently no matter what she did. Tucked into the blanket was a stuffed Maramu. She bounced him slightly, then set him down on the bed.

 

“As long as you don’t do any fancy maneuvers, he should be fine,” Leia assured her. “Just make sure you’re holding him when you go into hyperspace. Otherwise you’ll turn his little head to jelly.”

 

Rey flicked on the engine. It purred a bit more roughly than usual, but it started up. It wasn’t too bad, so she ignored it. According to her calculations, she had enough fuel to get to Luke’s planet and a bit beyond. She wasn’t going to use hyperspace; it just wasn’t worth it.

 

As the ship rose into the air, she looked back at the ground, at Leia, the doctor, and Threepio. For once, she was the one leaving others behind.

 

  
Something on the ship was busted. That much was very clear. After her landing, she could get the engine to start, but one of the jets wasn’t firing. Rey swore loudly.

 

“Something in the wiring? I’ll look at it later.”

 

Luke’s new planet was very rocky and mountainous. Stubborn vegetation clung to craggy cliffsides. Rey strapped Tory into his birikad and started upwards, leaning heavily on her staff. He seemed so heavy there, cooing and grunting. About every fifty feet, she would stop, heart pounding and breath heavy.

 

“Tory, don’t pull Mummy’s hair,” she said, trying to pull his tiny hands from her bun. “It hurts!”

 

He grunted softly and yanked even harder. Rey groaned and sat down besides the goat-path she’d been climbing.

 

“Are you trying to say you’re hungry? I thought I just fed you.” She squinted at the tiny sun behind its shroud of grey. “I guess it is that time again.”

 

She swung her son around to her front, and pulled a breast from her top. Tory squirmed, opening and closing his mouth.

 

“Hold still, I’m trying to--Tory stop squirming. Well, now you’ve closed your mouth again. Do you hate me? Is that what this is?”

 

He looked up at her with big brown eyes, melting her heart.

 

“If you’d listen to me, this would go much easier...” she said, her scolding trailing off.

 

“Why are you talkin’ to a baby?” came a child’s voice from the rocks up ahead of her.

Rey looked towards the pile. Seated on top was a young Togruta girl, wearing tan robes and munching on a piece of dried meat.

 

“Because he needs to eat, and he won’t,” she explained. “Are you... Losa Dameron?”

 

“Uh-huh. Are you the guest Master Luke told us about?” She nodded, jumping down from the sharp rocks onto another sharp rock.

 

“I think so. My name’s Rey,” she said. “I’d shake your hand, but I need to get him to eat his lunch.”

 

“Oh,” said Losa. “I think I was a baby once. But my daddies met me when I was six. I’m seven now.”

 

“They told me about you. Your daddies are some of my dearest friends. Do you know how far away your Master’s house is?”

 

“About ten minutes for me. Longer for you, ‘cause you’re kind of slow. If you want, I could send Pizzy up to tell him.”

 

“That’d be lovely. Thank you,” Rey sighed.

 

“You’re welcome. PIZZ-YYYYYYYY! GO TELL MASTER THAT REEEY IS HEEEERE!” she screeched. Rey covered the baby’s ears.

 

“He should be here soon. Want some of my meat?” she said politely, and shoved a spit covered wad of jerky into Rey’s face. “Daddy Poe says sharing is caring.”

 

“No thank you. I’d just like a little quiet so I can feed Tory,” she muttered, trying in frustration to get him to latch on properly. “He’s not very good at it the first few tri--there we go, my love.”

 

She sighed as Tory finally started nursing, little gulps and sighs spilling from his mouth. Rey reached for the birikad and began tying it into the nursing position. Losa looked on, obviously intrigued.

 

“Do you want to walk up with me?” Rey asked her. “You’re so good at climbing that I’m sure you know all the easiest paths.”

 

Losa nodded and grabbed her hand. With the other, she pointed to a ridge that looked completely sheer. Rey groaned internally.

 

“There’s stairs inside that,” the girl said, pointing to them with pride. “Let’s go!”

 

Rey had decided that steps were her worst nightmare by the time they emerged at the top. Luke stood there, hands on hips, and he looked better than she had seen him in ages: beard nicely trimmed, robes actually clean, and surrounded by a gaggle of chattering children.

 

“Rey,” he said softly, holding his arms out wide. “I knew you’d come back.”

 

“Master.” She bowed jokingly, then walked into his embrace.

 

“We have a lot to talk about. Come inside.” He gave her a light squeeze, and led her inside.

 

The first words out of his mouth sunk her heart like a stone. She sat there, burping Tory in silence.

 

“I’m sorry, Rey. I don’t know where he is.”

 

“The Foreseer didn’t tell you?”

 

“No. They told me that the First Order would take you, and you would cause their end. And they told me where the Knights of Ren are hiding, but not where Ben is.”

 

“So I came here for nothing? Leia said you could help me.”

 

“I can. Why do you think they’d tell me where the Knights of Ren are if it wasn’t meant to help in some way?”

 

“Where are they?”

 

“A very dangerous planet, strong in the Dark Side. It’s named Korriban, and there are some dangerous beasts there.”

 

“I think I can handle them,” she scoffed.

 

“No. You can’t run from these for long. They aren’t mindless animals. The Sith made them, unleashed them on unsuspecting planets. They used to be rancors, now they’re called terentateks. They feed on the blood of Force sensitives, Jedi in particular. And they’re extremely hard to kill. Tusks as long as a man, armoured skin, and fast.”

 

“I don’t have my saber.” She frowned and clutched Tory tighter.

 

“Nobody’s seen one in over fifty years. There was an old of mine, Lor San Tekka, who saw one in his teenage years. They might have all died out. Just be careful.”

 

“I will when I go, I might need to stay here for a while.” She sighed. “Something’s wrong with my ship. One of the jets is out.”

 

“Stay here as long as you need.” Luke smiled. “You’re my guest.”

 

Pain as sharp and fresh as yesterday pierced her heart. She looked away and stroked her son’s back. He blew a bubble of spit in her ear.

 

“Can I hold my great nephew?” Luke stretched his hands to her. Rey gave Tory to him and settled back onto the stool.

 

“That day I heard the prophecy, I thought my life was over. ‘Bride of the Monster’. Sounds like a stupid holovid. Now I’m doing everything to get him back.” Rey shook her head. “I don’t know why, but I really don’t have to though, do I?”

 

“No, you don’t. Most people would have given up by now. How old is the he, by the way?”

 

“About three months. And it’s not that I can’t give up on him, it’s that I won’t.”

 

“It’s love, Rey. I felt the same thing towards my father, Darth Vader.” Luke bounced Tory on his knee. “Love is what tells you to keep going even when it hurts.”

 

Rey thought for a moment, then stood up.

 

“I’ll stay until I can figure out what’s wrong with my ship. Do you want me to take him or?”

Luke shook his head.

 

“You go do what you need to do. It’s been a long journey. Go get some sleep.”

 

Rey walked out of the room, leaving her worn-out sandals behind.

 

 


	19. Chapter 19

Korriban was a dead, dusty red. Swirling and wailing winds carved twisted rock sculptures and canyons into its landscape, like wrinkles and scars on the face of an old soldier. The Knights of Ren stood out to her through the Force like a pile of snow on grass, the only cold in this biting heat.

 

She lowered the ship into the edge of the canyon, giving herself a wide buffer on every side. Tory stared up at her from his birikad and smiled, now a rather chubby cheeked six month old. Rey slid him onto her hip and untied the straps.

 

“You’re going to stay here, okay? Mummy has to go... persuade some people,” Rey cooed, walking into her room.

 

The ship rocked, tilting to the right. Rey yelled, frantically turning herself. She slammed into the floor, Tory clutched tight to her breasts. Her hip was yelling, most likely bruising purple and yellow that very second. The ship kept rocking, not as heavily as before. Animalistic roars bellowed around them. Tory started crying softly, burying his face into her chest.

 

“Terentateks,” she whispered, blood cold.

 

She ran to the bedroom, grabbing anything soft she could lay her hands on. Sheets, pillows, blankets, Tory’s stuffed animal. Using the Force, she flung open the door to the fresher, then started towards it. Its floor was somewhat raised, and she quickly packed it full, placing Tory into a hollow in the center. He reached for her with tiny hands. She handed him his stuffed animal, gave him a quick, firm kiss to the forehead, and left.

 

Rey grabbed her staff and knife without stopping. Tory’s wails grew louder with every quake of the ship. Anger rose like bile in her throat, and she opened the hatch.

 

There it stood, ten feet tall, yellow and droopy-skinned with squinting eyes and gnarled fingers. It rocked the ship, roaring and sniffing loudly. Rey pulled a sharp rock to her using the Force and cast it at the monster, running down the ramp.

 

It turned and looked directly at her. Rey closed up the ramp and headed straight for it. The terentatek released its hold on the ship and lumbered towards her with ground-cracking footsteps. It blindly swept its hands at her, movements slow. The claws birthed wind, pulling her off balance, flapping her cape.

 

Retreating a few steps, she scanned her opponent. Frosted-over eyes, weeping nostrils, chipped-off tusks. Numerous scars littered its body, and its sniffs seemed more like pants. Head raised to the sky, it chuffed loudly, three times. The call echoed on the wind. Rey’s hair stood up on the back of her neck. Another few sharp rocks lay nearby. She levitated them, aimed the points at the beast’s exposed throat, and fired.

 

At the last second, it pulled its head down, the rocks clashing into its teeth. Green blood and empty space grinned back at her, teeth and drops falling to the ground. It shook its head, letting forth a spray, then charged.

 

Rey ran at it, staff raised. She swung as hard as she could at its feet. The terentatek stumbled, crashing into the earth. Green spit strings and blood littered the earth as it groaned and tried to claw its way up. She jumped onto its back and hooked the staff against its throat. Rey braced her feet into its back, pulled tight, tight, tighter. It hissed and choked, writhing.

 

She screamed, throaty and raw, muscles shaking as it let out a final gurgle. Rey slumped, panting feverishly. Dead, the thing was dead. Cautiously she slid down the body, metal sandals clanging against the dry earth. So old and rotten was its barely-living flesh, that the impenetrable armour that Luke warned her of was nothing harder than fruit. Her staff had cut through the neck and windpipe, leaving nothing to hold it there but a knot of bending spine. Rey looked at it solemnly, then gave it a venom-filled kick. Again, and again, and again.

 

Tory could not be left alone in the ship. The monster had called others, other beasts who longed to lick the blood of Force-sensitives from the thirsty ground. She flew up the ramp, arms spread wide, heart beating for want of her child. He still lay there in his nest of soft things, eyes wet with tears.

 

“Come on Tory.” She scooped him up and breathed in the scent of dark curls and milk. “You have to come with Mummy.”

 

Rey closed her eyes. What was worse? To bring him to a place fated to end in bloodshed, or to leave him here and simply hope that he wasn’t Force-sensitive enough to become prey to tarenteks? No. No, no, never, no. She strapped on the birikad and put him on her back.

 

  
She strode in, the emissary of Kad Ha’rangir, bringer of war, and death, and annihilation. A child strapped to her back and the head of a great beast in her hand. She dropped it, did not flinch as its shots of blood flecked her face, and spoke with the measured inevitability and cataclysmic might of a meteor descending upon a planet.

 

“Tell me where my husband is.”

 

The black figures perched like ravens in a patchwork nest. A half dozen stitched together knights looked at her as though she had two heads.

 

“My name is Rey Solo. You have the information I require about your former leader’s location.”

 

The clink of metal weapons pricked her ears. The figures dropped to the ground and began circling. Rey closed her eyes for a moment; she plucked at strands of the Force, twisting and weaving them into a shell around Prestor. When the last hole had been plugged, she opened them.

 

“We aren’t telling you anything.” One of them swaggered forward, chest puffed. He growled. “You think you can just walk in here and tell the Knights of Ren what to do?”

 

He had a staff too, more of a polearm, really. The style looked similar to a Night-Sister’s halberd. So this was a Dathomirian, and the new leader.

 

“Are you going to give me it or not?” Rey’s tone could have rivaled Hoth. “You know I can take whatever I want.”

He snapped his fingers, and it echoed around each of the walls.

 

Snap

 

Snap

 

Snap

 

Snap

 

A Dathomirian axe blade swung down, cutting the air into pieces above her right shoulder. Rey jumped back, twisting her staff into the handle. She pulled down, fighting against the meaty arms holding it. They tugged and pulled. It was like trying to flip a mountain. Rey locked her arms, slowly, slowly....

 

CRACK

 

The metal sandal pierced his flesh, splintering his ribs like toothpicks. He buckled over, gasping and wheezing blood-frothed spittle onto the floor. Rey slammed the the rough edge of her staff into his head as hard as she could. His skull crunched under the blow, and he hit the floor face-first. She felt something splatter her legs, but all she was aware of was the two advancing figures and Tory’s wails.

 

A blade came whizzing in an arc past her legs, slicing scarlet across its path. Rey lunged and Force-shoved the Knight into a wall as hard as she could. With the other hand, she sent the immense blade spinning back. It whizzed through the air with a whistling screech. His head fell, rolling off his lap and back into the fray.

 

A blaster shot screamed in her ear, striking off of Tory’s shield. Two more flashed overhead. Rey felt a hellish sound claw itself from her throat and leapt towards them. Her leg gave out under her, spilling Rey onto the floor. Her wound gaped open, red muscle and blood sticking her skin to the floor with a faint popping sound. Shock wailed white-hot in her brain.

 

‘Blasters, have to stop them from shooting-’

 

She threw up a quick shield, blaster bolts rippling it like rocks on the surface of a lake.

 

‘Skipping stones,’ Rey’s mind raced. The shield wasn’t inflexible, she could...

 

With the next wave of shots, the shield curved inwards. She heard a scream like a wounded animal, the sizzling of bubbling flesh and burned hair.

 

‘Get up Rey, get up, get up, there is no pain, no suffering come on you are outside of it, remember crucitorn, crucitorn, Rey GET UP.’

 

Rey pulled herself up, quakes of fiery, electrical heat spasming in her leg. Spots pirouetted in her irises, clumping together at the edges of her vision. She felt pain bleed from her leg with every heartbeat and it grew fainter and fainter.

 

The remaining gunman was a cyborg, weapon wired into his arm with little grace or dignity. He raised it to the level of her chest, lights along the edge flipping on in sequence. She clapped the Force around the gun as hard as she could, rucking the edges in. The bulbs crackled with every buckle of the metal; the wires twisted like snakes. Rey pulled.

 

Two more. Her leg shook, coated with red and pulsing lightly. Above the Force-screams of the dying, she heard the baby. She exhaled, trembling, and faced her remaining two enemies. One seemed shrunken, either from fear or diminutive stature. The other stood tall and haughty, with pointed boots that had heels as keen and sharp as a harpy’s tongue.

 

“So. The Jedi slattern we heard so much about.” The Knight’s voice was cool and smooth, like a pane of ice. It would have been beautiful if not for its innate cruelty. “Whose beauty caused the death of our Supreme Leader...”

 

She looked Rey up and down. The messy hair, the bloodstains, swollen breasts, and sweat and grease painted face.

 

“Clearly he didn’t look too carefully,” the Knight laughed, rolling a gloved hand down to pull a thermal detonator from the lining of her belt. “You’d find better looking women in a Huttese brothel.”

 

Rey shook her head. “I have no time for this. Fight me if you will, or tell me where he is. Let’s not waste any breath with idle threats and insults.”

 

She flicked on her detonator. “Very well then. I suppose I-”

 

Rey Force-grabbed her hands and kept them there. The knight struggled against her, trying everything to break free and turn it off. She looked up at Rey and started running towards her. Rey froze the woman’s legs and reached around, covering Tory’s tiny ears. She felt the fear, the fury.

 

The bomb exploded in a ball of heat like a miniature sun. Inside was nothingness, molecules and memories unwound like a spool of thread in the harsh light. The shockwave rippled slightly within its sphere, before ebbing away into normality. All was still.

 

There was no body, no floor in a six meter circle. Rey shuddered violently, staring at the empty space no more than seven feet from her toes. She looked up. The remaining Knight of Ren had plastered himself against the opposite wall. He hyperventilated, horror coming off his body like a cat threw off sparks. She stalked towards him.

 

“Tell me where he is.” Her voice was dangerously soft, getting louder with each clack of her metal sandal. “Tell me where he is right now.”

 

She knelt and reached for his helmet. With one hand, she unbuckled it and dropped it on the floor. He was young. Very young. No older than she. Softer, with boyish cheeks, blue eyes, and blonde hair. Rey stood back up, never once softening or averting her gaze. She raised her staff above his mask.

 

CRACK

 

It split into pieces, fragments of slivers, rippling out like spiderwebs from the edge of her bent staff.

 

“T-there’s a planet!” he stuttered. “In the Unknown Regions. Snoke had him train there, far away from the rest of us. We came here.”

 

“Why did Snoke have him go there alone?”

 

“I don’t know. There was something there. A place. A tomb, I think. From before the Sith. It had Dark Side power different than anything they’d ever done. It was much more unpredictable- alive almost.”

 

“Give me the coordinates.”

 

He threw his hands up. “I don’t know! Please, spare me. I wasn’t allowed to know them. I just know what they called it.”

 

“Tell me the name.”

 

“Kyr’am. That’s what he always called it. It’s Mando’a for- “

 

“ Death, ” Rey whispered. “In a place that is east of all stars and west of all moons, in a place where the wind always blows silently. That is where I will find him again.” She looked down at the young knight. “You have a ship?”

 

He hesitated for a split second, then nodded.

 

“Bury the other Knights, then leave this place. It’s dangerous if you’re alone.”

She swung Tory around to the front, soothing his shaking form with her hands and kisses. “Time to go. We’re almost there,” she whispered, and set off again.

 

 


	20. Chapter 20

Back at the ship, Rey looked at her staff and considered it. The grease and sweat of her palms had worn off the rust in circular patterns long ago. Now the end was as blunt as C-3PO.

 

Rey set it aside and took off her sandals. The right had broken off partially, and the straps were worn thin. She padded barefoot over to the map gingerly, tossing a glance over at the sleeping baby. She cupped her right breast and winced. He’d sucked and gummed much harder than usual, pulling at her skin tightly. Poor thing. At least he was sleeping now.

 

The Unknown Regions. Somewhere within that darkness, her husband hid, on a planet named “Death.”

 

“Where the wind always blows, east of all stars and west of all moons,” she whispered to herself, forehead wrinkled in concentration. “The ‘west of all moons’ bit probably refers to the unknown regions...’

 

Her heart soared.

 

“He wanted me to come find him, in those last few moments,” she bit her lip. Two of her four clues, gone. “East of all stars... Where the wind always blows... That last one isn’t helpful at all. I can’t use an individual, undiscovered planet’s weather patterns to-”

 

Rey squinted at the stars on the map, and tapped to zoom in. When she got close enough to see no more than five or six systems at a time, tiny arrows appeared, marking the paths likely to be interfered with by solar flares, storms, and-

 

“Solar wind. A planet caught in an unusual amount of solar wind.” She smiled, fingers racing. “And East of all stars. Planets move, think, Rey. So maybe at the eastern edges of the unknown regions? But that wouldn’t count for a-” Rey put her hands to her forehead and grinned. “A binary or tertiary star system! Of course!” she exclaimed.

 

Tory gurgled fussily. Rey looked over her shoulder for a moment, before turning back to the map. She zoomed out, and tapped the Unknown Region.

 

“So, it’ll be to the East, and probably not too far in. If the First Order had gone in deep, they would have made their base there, right?” Rey nodded at her own line of reasoning. “A tertiary star system is pretty rare. Not good for sustaining life, either. Snoke wouldn’t have sent him there to just to have him die . So it’s got to be binary...with a large... solar wind... output.”

 

Rey clicked some numbers in manually, adding up extra factors in her head. Distance from Cel Fermecat to the closest piece of the Unknown Region, fuel efficiency, drift, known black holes....

 

She looked up, triumphant. There on the screen was an area outlined in orange. Somewhere in there was the planet Ben called Death. Her fingers flew, typing in coordinates as her mind raced.

 

“A general sweep... It shouldn’t take more than a month to locate all the binary star systems in the area. Call Mum, maybe she’ll have a better map, or some logs.”

 

Rey whirled around, grinning at her red-faced baby.

 

“Tory, Mummy’s feeling very pleased with herself! Ready to go on another adventure?”

 

He didn’t reply, but Rey practically skipped to the holo, punching in the numbers for the General’s private line. It rang once, twice, thrice. She opted to leave a message once the automated answering kicked in.

 

“Hello? It’s Rey. Listen, I think I found out where he is, but I need your help. If you have any information regarding exploration into the Unknown Regions, please send them to me. All my love, and say hello to my boys for me.”

 

She signed off, and for the first time in almost an age, Rey felt content.

 

 


	21. Chapter 21

It reminded her of the planet where they lived together, but with a much darker refrain of a familiar theme. It had taken her almost three months to find it, much longer than she had predicted. She’d had to comb some of the planets on foot, rarely encountering anything more intelligent than one of the baby’s diapers. Yet as soon as her feet touched the ground, she was certain that her search was over.

 

The trees were old and twisted, the leaves so close together that the sunlight couldn’t pry them apart. There were beasts that were whispered to mate with the shadows themselves, and she half believed it, with the silent way they stalked branches. Rey slipped Tory’s birikad to the front, snug between her breasts. She disliked these silent creatures; they reminded her painfully of the tarenteks.

 

He quickly fell asleep, as was his way, and she was left alone with her thoughts, memories, and aching feet. The grass was soft enough, but there were tangles of thorns and patches of rock. Her feet had stopped bleeding long ago, but even her callous-thick soles weren’t immune to bruising and pain. She kept walking.

 

‘ What if I don’t find him here?’ was her weary thought. She knew the answer of course.

 

It didn’t matter how long it took, she was going to find him. An uncomfortable image grew in her mind. The baby turning into a man, finding his own partner, raising his own children. And her, alone and always missing a piece.

 

‘ Calm down, Rey,’ she thought to herself, casting a reassuring glance at the curly head on her chest. ‘He’s not even a year old yet. So stop thinking about dying alone.’

 

As if to reassure her, Tory let out a whistling snore and spewed a string of snot onto her left breast, then sucked it back in.

 

“Ubup?” Tory babbled sleepily. Rey patted his head and murmured an affirmative.

 

 

That night, Rey slept very little. The woods were moaning, and the beasts circled around their campfire. In the dying of the light, she had set up traps and pitfalls around their rudimentary campsite, but she was still uneasy. The animals existed only in the edges of her sight. She had no idea whether they had wings, fur, scales, or fifteen-thousand legs.

 

None of this had bothered the baby, of course. He sat there and had his dinner before going right to bed in her lap. Rey kept one hand on her staff, using the other to stroke his back and occasionally wrap more spare tunic fabric around him. If he got sick on this dead-and-alive planet... She juggled the two worries in her head over and over, fear of never finding Ben again and fear of losing Prestor, until the pale sun changed the shade of the leaves.

 

She travelled deeper still into the cavernous forest, passing stalagmites and stalactites of wood and dying trees. They began to arc, growing twisted and white, like skeletal hands pointing her the right way. She followed the path above, the one below was rapidly rotting.

 

Slowly the ground began to drown itself, cleaving sharper and sharper into the ground. Dead vines played understudy to dead trees, becoming thick and twisted to hide the change. The only trace of green now was in the emerald-slate mosaic miles overhead. Something told her, maybe the change of her heart’s rhythm, or the unconscious speeding of her feet, that soon she would be there. Rey flew through the forest, the thudding in her chest crying out, begging.

 

Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben.

 

There it was. That horrid, familiar black stone from her dream. Smooth, taunting, and utterly vile. It wore moss like a shroud, ghosting it up and down with pale fingers of wind that died before reaching her. Rey hated this place for what it was, a sore, a hole in the earth that wept black poison for the mind, plugging the ears to all things but its own dark whispers, and it hated her.

 

The door was triangular but curved. Three swooping lines connected at a curving crest of earth and mocking point. No moss grew on it, and it was black and clean and as gagging as an oil slick. Rey held out her hand to the point, shoving her strands of the Force around it, intent on forcing it so far below ground it could never crawl its way above the surface again.

 

It stuck. Rey’s eyes felt white-hot, vomit and curses boiling at the bottom of her tongue. This was it, the final obstacle. This thing, this mere piece of metal, dared keep her from her husband.

 

‘ Forget shoving it underground. If it doesn’t budge within the next second I’m going to smash it into powder and throw it into a supernova,’ she snarled.

 

Rey continued pushing, but there wasn’t even an inch of give. She tried shoving it inwards, pulling it, battering her way in, and even knocking. Nothing. The door was as stuck as a Gungan with a riddle, and only half as useful.

 

Tory started fussing. Rey untangled him from the birikad and began bouncing him on her hip. This was going nowhere, fast. She sighed and started to softly croon one of her lazy nonsense songs.

 

“ Let’s see what we can see. I see a bunch of trees, the sky, Tory, and me.” Her eyes darted around the small ravine. Rocks, dead plants, thorns. Stone walls. An altar? She trotted over, clutching Tory to her breast. No, not an altar. A bowl, made of the same slick rock as the door. And a knife. It curved wickedly, like the smile of a tyrant, thin and keen and cutting.

 

Her heart stopped. The bowl and knife, the frozen door. No, of course it couldn’t have been so easy as to just open it. To walk in, see him there waiting for her, and to go away together a perfect family.

 

“Damn you,” she swore. “Haven’t I sacrificed enough?”

 

Thick silence was her answer, and the answer was a firm and unyielding “no”.

 

Rey set the baby down. She gave a final stroke of his hair and turned her attention back to the task at hand. The knife felt as light as a dream in her hand, silver and sharp and new as a star.

 

‘ Where?’ She swallowed, skimming over her skin. The base of her wrist, the crook of her elbow? Her shoulder, her palm. She opened and closed her other hand. Slowly she brought the tip of the knife up against the crease where the little finger met her palm.

 

“One. Easy. Cut.”

 

No

 

Her finger fell into the bowl, white hot pain ripping through her hand and she screamed she screamed. Wet hot blood slicked down her hand into the bowl, dripping through her frantic grip, trying to staunch the flow.

 

Next to her, the door slunk into the earth, resigned. The rush of air was cold, redirecting scarlet beads to twist their trails down her shaking palm. Dead, solid as marble.

 

“ BEN? Ben, it’s Rey, it’s me! Are you there? Please!”

 

No response.

 

‘ No, no no. He’s got to be in there,’ she sobbed. ‘ I didn’t cross the galaxy, I didn’t wander alone for eighteen months just to never see you again. To never see you heal, to know that there’s still a chance.’

 

Rey buried her face in her hands and wept. Salt and iron, blood and tears fell into the basin. Despair as thick and choking as clouds of great black smoke wiped her mind clean.

 

“Maummama.” Prestor blew bubbles at her. She looked at him. Her baby. Their baby. Made that night in one last act of love, before everything, everything fell apart. With his dark, curly hair like thorns of midnight and her light brown eyes and round face.

 

She knelt down, hardly daring to touch him with her soiled hands.

 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, bunching her now trickling wound into the dingy fabric of her tunic. “I thought that... I thought this time we’d find him. But I guess...”

 

Rey knew now exactly what Luke had felt that day on the Falcon. It was weary, weary resignation. The feeling that there was nothing left to do but continue on living in spite of the pain.

 

“I guess that it just wasn’t meant to be. Not this time. Come here, love.”

 

Prestor held out his arms for her. Together they walked into the solace of the tomb. Rey spread out her cloak for him to lie on and watched as he rolled around, chewing on his toes and drooling on everything. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but she still needed to keep it covered. She couldn’t stop shaking. Her shoulders bucked with the force of silent sobs as she dug through the pack. No bacta patches, her tunic was already bloodied and-

A soft gasp fell from between her lips. The cloth. It had been washed, tangled up in the pocket of his robe, then thrown haphazardly to the bottom. She slowly wrapped it around her wound, marveling at the threads of Force-presence still clinging to it, like perfume on a long-gone lover’s pillow.

 

Slowly the door rose up again, burying them inside the tomb.

 

 


	22. Chapter 22

_There were beasts in the forests, monsters. Yet they were all afraid of him, the creature who walked on two legs, with yellow eyes and no claws. He howled at night louder than they could, screaming and wailing for something lost that he couldn’t remember._

_‘ Listen,’ whispered the beasts to their young, whispering to the shadows . ‘ Here comes the lost one, the clanless. Beware, beware, beware. Beware the lost one, whose face is naught but eyes.”_

_He loped through the hidden paths he had made, checking the traps for the small animals that made up his diet. His basket was already filled with the plants and herbs for stew. Someone had taught him long ago what was safe to eat. Or had they? Maybe it was him. him, not Him him. He hadn’t come yet. He would someday._

_Over the hill was his home. It was dark, and cool, and safe. He didn’t feel as alone in there. His thoughts always seemed so much louder there. It’s when he left that place that the memories started to swirl around and around. Torturing him with voices that he could no longer hear._

_All around him was the dead brown and green and blue. The colors seemed dull, like the world had been washed one too many times. He tugged his hood down deeper and scanned the ground. Out of the earth-tone mosaic was a sharp splash. Deep, deep red drying underneath into sienna. Fresh, congealing, and human._

_He had come, the Him, the unseen shadow that hides behind the sun and moon. The great hunter with no name that dogged his dreams with foreign-tongued words of unlove-unwant-curse-servant-mine. The twisted-moon face like melted stone. It was here and was ready to drag him into death at last._

_His fingertips ignited, shots of electricity crackling and splitting the air like gunpowder. He reeled a pale arm back and lobbed the fizzing ball at the black stone. It struck the door dead center, little currents and rivers stitching into the stone to suffocate it in soil. Another ball of bolts sparked from his fingertips, a burning numbness that wavered up and down his arm. Cruel light rushed into the tomb, pushing and pulling shadows into corners and nooks, forcing everything into view. He stared into the abyss, and the abyss stared back. With pretty... light... brown... eyes._

 

“Rey...”

 


	23. Chapter 23

 

“Rey...”

He was here and running towards her. Rey felt herself fly towards him, feet leaving the ground. She crashed into him, the thickness of his chest and tight grip of arms. He was real, Ben was real. She could feel him, smell him...

 

Taste him.

 

Rey attacked his mouth, pressing her lips against his as hard as she could. The dizzying pain of his teeth against her mouth was bliss. The sound, the hotness of his breath.

 

“ I’ve been looking for you .... For so long,” she gasped.

 

He pulled away, eyes wide. Her arm was nearly turned backwards upon itself trying to hold Prestor still. Rey shuddered, looking into his old dark brown eyes. Slowly he sank down, his knees unable to support the insurmountable weight of himself. Ben rested his forehead gently against her stomach, filthy hands clinging to the material.

 

“Why did you come here? I am a monster, a child of the darkness, and I told you that we would only meet again in death.” His voice cracked beneath the hood, shattering Kylo Ren into pieces

 

She pulled it away, ran cool white fingers through his hair. Rey was hungry for the touch of him, the smell, the comfort. Slowly, she sank to her knees, her fingers skimming down his face. It was haggard, with dark circles and too-sharp cheekbones, cracked lips and wet eyes. But she couldn’t judge him for that. Hers were wet too.

 

“Because I love you,” she responded, and kissed him gently. ”I’m here to tell you it isn’t too late to save yourself. I want to help you, to bring you home. Please. I want you to stay with me, to meet your son. Leia says he’s so much like you were at that age...”

 

He said nothing, but enfolded her into his arms. It sent the tears welling up over the edge, spilling down her face. The pain of untold moments was even greater now. Any moment, any moment she was going to wake up and be alone again without this touch, this smell.

 

“I don’t deserve forgiveness. I’ve done nothing to atone for the evil I’ve done.”

 

“Ben,” Rey said quietly. “There’s only one person who hasn’t forgiven you of your past.”

 

“My mother?”

 

“No. She forgave you before there was even anything to forgive.”

 

“Then who?”

 

“I’m looking at him right now. Forgiveness isn’t yours to reject Ben, or to determine your worthiness of. The things you did to me, my friends, your- our family, were awful.” Rey shook her head. “I loved you before I forgave you, but they go hand in hand.”

 

Prestor squirmed and grunted in her lap, yanking on the clothes of this strange man who was invading his personal space and touching his mother. Ben looked down at him, a faint look of confusion in his eyes. Rey smiled, gently slipping Tory into his father’s lap.

 

“This is my son. You’re his father, in case you hadn’t guessed, and he knows nothing of your past. If you won’t come back for me,” she wiped at her eyes. “Come back for him. Be the father you wanted yours to be.”

 

He said nothing, lightly stroking his son’s hair with long, dirty fingers.

 

“If anything, I should be begging forgiveness of you.” Rey pulled away from them. “I... I never told you what happened that night.”

 

Ben looked up, watching her with cautious eyes.

 

“I found a temple in the woods,” she started, freeing her hair from its tie, never once looking at him. “I thought that maybe someday, the three of us, Luke, you, and I... we could rebuild the order there. One day I met a man by the name of Voland. He gave me a holocron and said that it would help turn you to the light.” Rey swallowed and took a deep breath. “I used it that night when you fell asleep. I... I think that was the night Prestor was.....” She gave a quick smile.

 

“Prestor? Like Prestor Bail Organa?”

 

“Yes. Prestor Lucas Solo. I didn’t have any family to name him after. He’ll be ten months old in a few weeks...” she trailed off. “But Ben... I’m sorry. I tried to fix you and-”

 

“You couldn’t. You can’t.”

 

“I can’t. Will you?”

 

“I deserve to die for my crimes. You do know that, don’t you?”

 

Rey hesitated. “Yes.”

 

“But you’re giving me a chance,” he spoke, careful pauses between each word, like he expected she’d laugh any second and leave him unforgiven again. “Because you love me.”

 

“I said that a few times, yes. I’ll say it again if I have to. I love you. You are a broken, broken man, but you’re mine. I take vows very seriously, Ben Solo.”

 

He smiled. “Leaving me here is out of the question for you, isn’t it?”

 

“If you decide to be difficult, I’m killing you, hauling you on board, and then bringing you back to life.”

 

Ben stood up, looking for the life of him like a gawky Han Solo. He held out a hand to her.

 

“Come on then, Rey. Let’s go home.”

 

He smiled at her, that smile which she hadn’t seen in over a year, white, brilliant, and wrinkling the edges of his face in the most wonderful way. Rey smiled back and took his hand.

 

“I agree. We’ve been gone for far too long.”

 

They walked out hand in hand, at last allowed to live their lives together.

 

End


	24. Epilogue

http://personalphilosophie.tumblr.com/post/153196186253/east-of-all-stars-and-west-of-all-moons-epilogue


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